Terminal Velocity Part Three
by loobeyloo
Summary: After finding an unexpected ally, Stringfellow Hawke is still no closer to revealing the traitor at Project Thunderbird, however, things quickly come to a head, and Hawke must finally bring in Santini and Airwolf, if they are to save his new friend.
1. Chapter 1

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter One**

Stringfellow Hawke waited in the shadows for a couple of minutes, watching Sara Sykes make her way quickly and quietly back to the main complex, and then leaning heavily against the garage shed, he drew in deep, calming breaths and gazed up at the night sky, his eyes automatically picking out the constellations that were so familiar to him, replaying recent events in his mind, finding himself suddenly better able to understand why Sara had seemed to be cooling off toward him, while rubbing absently at a niggling little ache at the base of his spine.

The guy in the bar last night, he must be her contact on the outside, Hawke surmised.

He had probably been the one she had passed on the specimen carton to, and the one who had run the background check on Roger Dobbs, and _**his**_ fingerprints.

So, it naturally followed that the guy was also military.

Maybe even her commanding officer.

It also naturally followed that it was because of what that guy had told her, that Sara ….

_**Yes, keep thinking of her as Sara …. **_

It was because of what she had learned about him, at that meeting, that her feelings for him had begun to change.

She hadn't liked what she had discovered.

He wasn't the man she thought, and his reasons for being involved in the project were suspicious to say the least.

She hadn't known what to believe.

Except that Roger Dobbs was not the man that she had come to know, and like.

He wasn't the hero who had saved her life.

Instead, he was someone who didn't belong.

Someone, who was no longer to be trusted.

Someone who, quite apart from the recent show of heroics, could prove to be a traitor, and a cold blooded killer.

Hawke now recalled how tangled his own feelings had been at the thought that Sara might be a traitor.

A murderess.

So incongruous, in fact, it had made him heartsick.

Had made him begin to doubt his instincts, and judgement of human nature.

And he had been right.

After a fashion.

For as it turned out, she too was not as she appeared.

Military Police.

_**Damn!**_

He would never have pegged it.

She was good. Damned good.

She had certainly fooled him.

On many levels.

She was a damned good actress, and she had also proved that she was quick at thinking on her feet.

He, on the other hand was lousy at it.

There was no way on earth that he would have come up with anything quite as creative as she had. He would simply have allowed the patrolman to come to his own conclusions based on the evidence of his own eyes.

He might have gotten away with it.

But, then again, he might not.

He might just as easily have found himself cooling his heels behind bars right now, Sara tossed out of the base on her ear, and no way to get out of the situation without blowing his cover.

Which, he had anyway, but at least this way it had been to only one person.

Sara Sykes.

Infinitely better that she be the one to know the truth, than the top brass, who, he was still undecided, may or may not be involved in what was happening here at Thunderbird.

Sara had also proved that she could hold her own in hand to hand combat.

_**Now, that could prove very interesting!**_

He wrestled with another grin as his hand drifted absently to his tender behind.

His butt could certainly testify to her expertise in self defence.

Thank God no-one had been around to witness her throwing him around like a rag doll.

Although, she had caught him unaware.

She wouldn't be so lucky next time.

_**Next time?**_

_**Who was he kidding!**_

He'd make damned sure that there was no next time.

He'd never be able to live it down if anyone got wind of the fact that she had put him flat on his back in under ten seconds.

And, not just once.

Then caught himself up as he realised that his grin was getting wider, as he imagined his sweet revenge.

His reward.

Those soft, sweet, red lips of hers, slightly moist from running her tongue over them, and slightly parted, invitingly, welcoming his own.

Her strong, yet loving arms, folding around him, drawing him close, her long fingers twining into his hair, fingernails digging into his scalp, her hips moulding to his own ….

_**Hey, slow down fella!**_

No time for that kind of thinking!

No time for that kind of thing, period!

Wrong time.

Wrong place.

_**Wrong gal!**_

Too much fire.

Too much spirit.

Too much defiance in those exotic eyes.

Way too much woman altogether.

Firebrand.

And, he reminded himself, if the look he had seen in those dark eyes had been any indication, right now she was more inclined to shoot him than kiss him again.

And suddenly, getting back into her good books was more important to him than the mission he had been charged with.

It shouldn't matter to him what she thought of him.

But it did.

He wanted her to like him.

He wanted her to want him, as badly as he wanted her right now.

But, more importantly, he needed her to trust him.

He would do whatever he had to do to achieve that goal, because he suspected that if they were going to get to the bottom of what was going on here, at Thunderbird, they were going to have to work together.

As husband and wife.

_**Hot damn, this work for the Firm was nothing if not challenging!**_

Always throwing him a curve ball just when he least expected it.

Newly weds?

How the hell did they act?

He wished he had paid more attention to those of his friends who had tied the knot.

Oh well, he would just have to do as Archangel had advised.

And wing it!


	2. Chapter 2

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Two**

Sara Sykes quietly and stealthily made her way back down the fire escape stairwell, ever watchful and vigilant, ears pricked, constantly aware that someone else might appear at any moment and demand to know what she was doing.

All the time she was moving, cautiously, her mind was racing, as she carried on a silent debate with herself as to the sanity of what she was about to do.

She was already torn, between what she felt for Roger Dobbs.

Stringfellow Hawke …..

_**No, keep thinking of him as Roger Dobbs.**_

She was already torn between what she as a woman, felt for Roger Dobbs, as a man, as a human being. All her instincts telling her that he was a good man with a gentle heart, a keen mind, and a deep seated sense of loyalty and fair play.

And her duty.

She was finding it difficult to be unbiased and objective, especially when even the tiniest glimpse of him across a crowded room set her heart racing in her chest.

_**Dammit, woman, get a grip!**_

_**Write a prescription and take a powder, for a little self control!**_

Yes, he was cute and adorable and easy on the eye, but it didn't automatically follow that his heart or his motives were pure.

Yes, she liked him.

Yes, she found him attractive, and yes, any other time or place, she might have thrown caution to the wind and allowed herself to give into her instincts, because, if she were honest, she really did want to trust him.

She wanted to more than trust him.

And oh God yes, she _**wanted**_ him ….

But more than that, she also wanted to be able to rely on him as her protector, her guardian, someone to watch her back.

_**But not yet,**_ a little voice warned deep down inside.

_**Not yet.**_

_**Remember what is at stake, **_she told herself firmly.

_**Remember what the consequences could be.**_

_**And, never, never judge a book by its cover.**_

So, hear him out, then get him checked out, again.

All she had to do was pick up the nearest telephone and call her contact, Ron Farmer, and he would do the rest.

Only then could she allow herself to fully trust Roger Dobbs.

She found herself praying that he really was on the level.

Not because of her personal feelings for him, which were getting more and more confusing and harder to ignore, she permitted herself to acknowledge silently, but because she was so tired of feeling so damned isolated and alone.

And scared.

Paranoia was beginning to set in, which was one of the reasons why she was fighting, hard, against her instincts to simply trust Roger Dobbs.

It would be so good to have someone to confide in, to share the burden with.

Good to know that someone was watching over her.

Since the incident in the lab, she had been wary of trusting anyone, with the exception of the man who had risked his own life to pull her out of the smoke filled room.

Only then, to discover, that he wasn't entirely spotless himself.

Yet, despite the fact that she couldn't make up her mind if she had been careless and revealed her true purpose to the maniac behind these incidents, or if it was purely coincidence, she had had to force herself to carry on as normal, and she was still no closer to her goal.

Had someone grown suspicious of her?

Or had she simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Was someone on to her?

She didn't know how that could be for she had been so very careful.

If she had been careless, then surely Roger Dobbs would have put two and two together by now, but, she recalled with amazement and mild amusement now, that he had thought that _**she**_ was the saboteur.

So, maybe it wasn't due to carelessness, but _**something**_ had made him a little suspicious of her.

But, if he really was undercover, then he would naturally be suspicious of everyone, not just her.

So, maybe it was simply a case of the saboteur becoming impatient at his lack of success, and had decided to up the ante.

Sara Sykes stopped on the landing of Level Five, catching her breath and waiting to hear the telltale clank of the metal door to the outside world as it shut behind Dobbs, her hand automatically drifting behind her to check that her service issue side arm was in it's hiding place in the waistband of her skirt, fighting the desire to check once again that it was loaded and that the safety catch was on, relieved that it was within easy reach, but hoping against hope that she would not have to use it ….

Hopefully just the threat would be enough to coax Dobbs to tell her the whole truth.

No matter how much she might like Roger Dobbs, no matter how much she might want to give him the benefit of the doubt, now was not the time to put her guard down and get sloppy.

"Sara?"

She immediately recognised the voice as belonging to Roger Dobbs, and with a mixture of relief, and surprise, she felt her heart begin to race in her chest. Her mouth was suddenly dry and her fingers were shaking as she glanced up the stairwell and saw his familiar face peeping over the handrail on the landing above.

_**The moment of truth.**_

She drew in long, slow, calming breaths as she waited for him to join her, unable to decide if what she was feeling was excitement or fear, elation of apprehension.

Was he on the level after all, or did he think that he would have a better chance of over powering her once they were alone inside?

_**Well kid, you're about to find out!**_

Reaching out to check for her weapon once more, Sara drew in another deep breath, then moving quickly, hoping to catch him unawares once more, she drew her weapon, aiming it with now steady hands, directly at the centre of his chest as he came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the stairs before her, not even breathing hard, she noted.

"Sara?" He regarded her now with wide eyed curiosity and a healthy dose of caution, she noted, his gaze moving from her stern, solemn expression, to the gun in her hand, and then back again, to scrutinise her dark eyes, then he slowly raised his hands above his head in silent submission.

"Against the wall, please, Roger, and I know it's a cliché, but as they are fond of saying on all the cop shows on TV, spread 'em."

Roger Dobbs did as he was told, slowly, carefully and without question, turning to rest his hands against the cold concrete and plaster wall, leaning all his weight on them, as he stood with his legs slightly apart and waited while she patted down his torso, working her way down slowly and thoroughly from under his arms to his waist, and then deftly ran her hand up and down each leg, checking to make sure that he did not have a weapon concealed about his person.

If he had still harboured any doubts that she really was a military cop, they were all gone by the time she had finished frisking him.

"Satisfied?" He drawled when she stepped away from him at last and indicated to him with the gun that he could now turn around to face her.

"You have had plenty of time to arm yourself, Roger, and a girl can't be too careful these days. So?" She prompted and kept the gun barrel levelled at the centre of his chest, her cupped hands steady now as they caressed the weapon.

She was obviously used to handling firearms, and the look on her face told him in no uncertain terms that she was not afraid to use it.

"Put the gun away Sara. Please? You really don't need it."

"I will be the judge of that, now, tell me, _**everything**_. You can miss out name, rank and serial number, I already know that part," she glowered at him.

"Ok Sara," he let out a soft sigh of submission. "I occasionally work for an outfit called The Firm, they're based at a place called Knightsbridge. I work for the Deputy Director of Special Projects, Michael Coldsmith Briggs III, codename, Archangel," he explained in a low, neutral voice now.

"I'm a pilot, and from time to time, they call upon my flying skills. That's why I am here, Sara."

"Oh?" she arched an eyebrow at him now.

"Several weeks ago, Archangel was approached by Dr Ely Weeks …."

He paused for a moment, deliberately, and saw immediately from the slight widening of her eyes that she knew exactly who the scientist was, and what he meant to Project Thunderbird, despite the fact that in all the time Dobbs had been on the base, he had not heard the good doctor's name mentioned within her hearing, he was sure.

"When, odd things began to happen on the project," he concluded.

"I don't call people dying, odd things, I call it down right carelessness."

"Yes, well, they asked me to do this, because I have some military experience. Roger Dobbs service record is really mine, up until the last tour of 'Nam ended in 1972, after that, its pure fabrication, a cover story worked out by The Firm. I'm here because I have the right qualifications. I could pass the physical, and I have the necessary flying skills. I can blend in. Archangel pulled a few strings in Washington, and here I am."

"That's it?"

"That's it," he confirmed. "I'm here for the same reason you are Sara, to get to the bottom of these incidents," he let out a soft sigh. "We had no idea that military investigations already had someone of their own on the case."

"Why would a civilian organisation be interested?" She demanded.

"I guess Dr Weeks was worried that with all the military involvement, the project would simply get lost amid the ass covering and accusation hurling between the services. He wanted someone who was completely neutral and unbiased to look into what was going on. I guess he just didn't trust any of the services to concentrate on finding out what was going on and who was behind it, without trying to cover their own tracks or point the finger of suspicion on one of the others. The Firm is completely neutral and has no stake in the project at all," he told her calmly.

"The Firm has Dr Weeks under wraps in Nevada, with the prototype. He was very distressed and under considerable strain, so we decided that we couldn't allow him to return, couldn't run the risk of him accidentally blowing my cover," he concluded.

Sara Sykes' expression remained serious as she regarded him, her dark eyes giving nothing away as to what was going on in her mind, and Roger Dobbs did not know if he had convinced her of his sincerity, until, after several long minutes of painful silence, she finally lowered her weapon, clicked on the safety catch and replaced it in the waistband at the back of her skirt.

Roger Dobbs let out a soft sigh of relief.

"You believe me?"

"Did I say that?" She arched an eyebrow quizzically at him. "Did you hear me say that?" She demanded, suddenly reminding him of Archangel now, and he could not suppress a small smile from curving at his lips.

"What's so damned funny?"

"Nothing," he pulled himself together and let out another, deeper sigh. "So?" He prompted. "You're still not convinced?"

"Well, Roger, I'm in two minds. You see, you know altogether too damned much about a whole bunch of stuff that you have no right to, and there are only two ways you could know them. One, if you are who you say you are, or two, if you are the one behind all the stuff that has been going on here."

"Call The Firm, talk to Archangel."

"Don't worry, I will, but if you think I am going to trust any number you might give me, then you are sadly mistaken. I could just be calling your accomplice on the outside."

"My what?"

"Your accomplice? The older, grey haired, heavyset guy, in the bar last night."

"My friend, not my accomplice," Dobbs sighed wearily now, growing tired of her indignation and unyielding attitude. "And while we're talking about accomplices, and guys in bars, who was he?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth," she countered. "Who was he?"

"Dominic Santini," Dobbs acquiesced, realising that one of them was going to have to give some ground, and that if he didn't want to end up being frogmarched at gunpoint to the stockade, then it had better be him.

"He's my boss at Santini Air, the outfit I fly for in LA," he explained succinctly. "But you know that already."

"Indeed I do, I was just testing you. So, what was he doing in the bar?"

"Archangel sent him. Dom sometimes helps me out when I'm on a job for The Firm. He's my back up. Archangel sent him to warn me that someone had run a background check on Roger Dobbs."

"That would be me …. Or more accurately, Ron Farmer, Major, US Army Military Police, _**my**_ back up."

"The guy in the bar? The one with the nose …."

"The guy in the bar. The one with the nose?" She frowned.

"Yeah. Looked like he collided with one too many fists."

This finally raised a smile from Sara Sykes now and helped to relieve a little of the tension between them.

"I'll be sure to give him your love when I call him."

"What now, Sara?"

"If you want the truth? I really don't know Roger, but I guess I have to start trusting someone."

"Thank you."

"I didn't say it would be you."

"Sara."

"I'm joking Roger," she came to stand a little closer, her eyes drinking in every detail of his handsome face and sincere blue eyes, then she reached out to lightly trace the outline of his strong jaw, an unmistakeable hunger burning in her own dark blue eyes as she did so.

"You seem like the real deal, Roger …. I'm sorry, but I really can't call you Stringfellow …."

"String."

"Whatever. I guess for now we're stuck with Roger and Sara," she forced a weak smile of apology.

"Then I guess that makes you, Mrs Dobbs."

"Mmmm," she nodded, a more genuine smile tugging at the corner of lips now. "But, if I find out that you're not the real deal, if I find out you've played me for a fool, a falsetto voice will be the least of your worries."

"I'll remember that," he smiled ruefully.

"Ok. So, for now, truce?"

"Truce."

"I know you're not happy about the newly wed thing …."

"You can say that again."

"But you'll get used to it," she grinned now. "It's all part and parcel of undercover work."

"Are you going to tell me what brings you here?"

"Same as you."

However, she could not seem to look him in the eye and she turned away from him and took a deliberate step back from him, making Dobbs frown now.

He watched her watching him for a brief moment, and then she turned away and walked across the landing, deliberately increasing the distance between them, but not before he registered a sudden flicker of pain in those exquisite violet eyes of hers.

He watched her shoulders rise as she took in a long, steadying breath now, obviously composing her thoughts, weighing up what she should or should not tell him, he mused silently.

"We lost one of our own," she told him, turning back to face him now, her features schooled into a neutral expression, but again there was something in her eyes. "The first death," she reminded. "Another so called accident."

"But it's more than that, isn't it, Sara?" He had been watching her closely and could see from her body language, her whole manner that she was deeply troubled by something.

"How very astute, jet jockey."

"I do wish people would stop calling me that, and flyboy, and Rog, and Roger …." his voice trailed away as he tried to recall the latest nickname she had come up with.

"Ramjet," she grinned now. "Roger Ramjet."

"Yeah, him too," he snarled, recalling the exaggerated chiselled good looks of the animated character now, and silently admitting that he did bear a striking resemblance.

"So noted," she grew solemn again now.

"Tell me?" He invited gently then, wondering what could possibly have caused the pain he could now see etched into her features.

"Just how much of this do you really know, Roger?"

"Ah, c'mon Sara, I thought we'd established a little trust here?" His tone was disappointed now.

"It was a simple question, Roger."

"Ok, Ok," he placated softly. "Dr Weeks told Archangel and myself that there had been several incidents, nuisance value to begin with, but then things started to escalate and people started to die in suspicious circumstances, a technician in a power surge in the simulator, a pilot on a routine test flight, when his pressure suit failed …."

Dobbs paused briefly, to draw breath, and again noted the sorrowful expression clouding her lovely face, suddenly unable to stop him self from wondering if she had been involved with the army man who had been electrocuted and experienced a brief sensation like a fist clenching, closing around his innards at the thought.

Something in her eyes told of a deep pain, a haunted quality now, and he was suddenly sure that this was deeply personal for her.

"There was one more death," Sara let out a soft sigh and there was a distinct quiver in her voice now.

Dobbs frowned, casting his mind back to the meeting in Archangel's office all those weeks ago, when Ely Weeks had explained his reasons for seeking their help.

Yes.

It came to him now.

Weeks had mentioned one other death, but he had been unable to say for sure if it was linked to every thing else that had happened.

"Dr Weeks' secretary, Claire Bentley," Dobbs filled in the silence that hung between them.

"His assistant, not secretary," she corrected him in a small voice. "Claire Bentley was my sister," her voice cracked then, and he could see tears swimming in those dark exotic eyes now.

Immediately he felt his heart constrict in his chest.

No wonder she had looked so distressed.

"I'm sorry," was all he could think to say, despite the fact that his first reaction was to cross the landing and fold her into his embrace, offering her comfort and a shoulder to cry on.

"Thank you."

"I thought it was an accident? A car wreck?"

"I _**never**_, for one second, believed it was an accident," she told him with an air of defiance now. "Claire was just too damned good a driver, military trained, like me, although she was a civilian. Our Daddy saw to it. Her husband, Daniel, he didn't believe it either, and after the funeral, he asked me if there was anything that I could do."

She paused briefly to drag in another steadying breath.

"I was attached to the military police, but only as a forensic pathologist, gathering evidence from crime scenes and trying to make sense of chaos. My CO was very tolerant of my request, but I don't think even he thought that it would go anywhere, and anyway, it was a civilian matter, but, I did manage to persuade him to have her car impounded, and I worked on it in my off duty time."

"Wow, detective, doctor, lawyer, injun' chief _**and**_ mechanic, huh?" Dobbs quipped, hoping to lighten the mood, just a little, as he watched tears cascade down her pale cheeks now.

"Yeah," she smiled her gratitude to him.

"Did you find anything?"

"Sure did. The brake line had been damaged, not cut, but eaten through with some kind of acid, made to look just enough like a natural wearing of the line, but I found it, and so I requested that her body be exhumed, and I got a civilian friend of mine to conduct a post mortem."

Her voice cracked then and more tears spilled down onto her pale cheeks, and Roger Dobbs found his heart once again constricting in his chest as he watched her wrestle to regain her composure so that she could continue, realising that if they had had to exhume her sister's body to do the procedure, it couldn't have been pleasant for any of them.

"I couldn't do it because of being a close relative, conflict of interest and all that, so, I approached a civilian colleague who had nothing to gain from it either way, someone totally impartial and unbiased, and he discovered remnants of a toxic gas in her blood," she told him, dashing away her tears impatiently with the back of her hand now. "Something neither he nor I have ever seen before …."

"Our theory is that the acid worked on the brake line and then something filled the car with deadly fumes, maybe pumped through the air conditioning system. She was overcome by the gas and that was why she swerved off the road and into that ditch."

"Very clever."

"Very thorough," she amended, in a tight little voice filled with pain and grief. "Poor Claire was dead from the moment she switched on the engine," she let out a deep, shuddering sigh. "Someone wanted her out of the way."

"Who?" He sighed deeply. "And why?"

"I don't know!" She railed. "That's what I'm here to find out."

"So, when the Army technician also died, your CO suddenly became very interested in what was going on here at Thunderbird, and you volunteered to stick your neck out."

"Not quite volunteered, exactly," she forced a smile to her lips now. "But you've got the right idea."

"I think your boss and mine would get along famously," he drawled sarcastically and was rewarded with the smallest of genuine smiles now.

"Let me help you, Sara. Please, I want to help," he told her gently after a brief, awkward silence hung between them, but he could not mistake the uncertainty in her eyes. "I didn't kill your sister, Sara."

Sara Sykes regarded him silently for several long minutes, then let out a long, shuddering sigh and again wiped impatiently at the tears coursing down her face.

"No, Roger, I don't believe you did," she conceded in a soft voice.

"Thank you."

He appreciated the simplicity of her response and quickly crossed the landing to her, arms open in invitation, and she gratefully walked into the circle of his embrace and buried her face in his shoulder blade as he drew his arms around her gently.

She stiffened against him, briefly, when she felt his arms tighten around her, just a little, a gesture of comfort and reassurance, however, both of them were aware that she still had her weapon tucked into the waistband of her skirt and that it would be so easy for him to disarm her and use it against her.

When he made no move toward the weapon, Dobbs could sense, just for a moment, that Sara Sykes was holding her breath in anticipation, then she let out a soft sigh of relief and relaxed against him once more, allowing her grief to pour silently down her cheeks as she tightened her own embrace around him.

Roger Dobbs held her close for several long minutes, stroking her hair, pressing his lips into it's ebony softness now and again, until finally, she drew away from him, a little reluctantly, a rueful smile on her tear streaked face as she gazed deeply into his piercing blue eyes.

"Ah, Roger, I could really get used to this. To you. I really hope you turn out to be the real deal, because if you're a wrong 'un," she sighed deeply, reaching up to push a wisp of his baby fine hair from his brow.

"You can shoot me," he offered with a lopsided grin. "Better yet, I'll shoot myself," he sighed softly then, bending his head slowly to claim her lips with a light, sweet, lingering kiss.

"So, what now, Sara?" He grew serious once more now, as, breathless, she withdrew from him completely and returned to the other side of the landing.

"Well, I still have to check out your story, and I'll have to let the Colonel know what's going on. He's not going to like it, believe me. He hasn't exactly been my greatest ally since I've been here," she sighed raggedly then. "And he'll go loco when he learns that you're really a civilian, but I've got it covered. My CO, General Madison will set him straight on priorities and inter service co-operation."

"And I'll get Archangel to let Dom know what's going on."

"How did you two plan to work together? You must know that now that the guys saw the two of you together in the bar last night, it would be impossible for you to see each other off base again?"

"We hadn't gotten quite that far in our plan," Dobbs sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward in exasperation.

"How do you think he would take to meeting up with his new daughter in law?"

"You?"

"No, dummy, Mother Theresa, who else!"

"You'd do that?"

"Well it stands to reason that if he's your back up, he's going to need someone to liaise with, who won't draw attention to themselves. I wasn't the one escorting him into the men's room last night," she reminded with a wicked twinkle in her eyes now. "And if he's your back up, in a way he's mine too, right?"

"Right," Dobbs acquiesced.

"So?"

"So, if I know Dominic Santini, the first thing he'll say is that he knew you could get most things from Army stores, but he didn't know a wife was one of them."

"And a baby," she reminded, and now noted the look that crossed his face. "So Roger, what do you want? A boy or a girl?" she teased lightly and was rewarded with another pained look.

"Hey, buddy, you'd better get used to it. If we have to go through with this charade, people are going to ask. Every one will think that they have a divine right to know, simply by virtue of the fact that they are here, with us, right now. Things like that don't just happen to the couple involved, but to everyone around them. It's a human nature thing."

Dobbs knew that she was right.

The idea of bringing a new life into the world turned even the hardest heart into mush, and made grown men ask questions that they wouldn't normally have entertained on pain of death.

Jibes about being a sly old dog and being a dark horse were one thing, but he could almost hear the dry remarks about the old guy still having lead in his pencil, and he cringed.

"Don't worry Roger, it's not terminal."

"What isn't terminal?"

"You can't die from being the butt end of every crude joke in Christendom, I promise."

"Are you sure you're a real doctor?" He scowled at her darkly now and watched her expression change.

"Honest injun'," she beamed at him now, and he could clearly see that she was enjoying herself at the thought of his discomfort.

"So, what's the plan?"

"Well, first things first, I call my backup, Ron Farmer and get him to confirm what you've already told me. Its procedure," she told him gently, not wanting him to think that she was having more doubts.

"And then we need to go see Colonel Jardine. We need to get in to see him early in the morning. Then we need to get our story straight, and it's my feeling that we should stay in character, stick to our story about being newly weds who tried to hide the fact because we were worried that one of us would be forced to leave and we wouldn't be able to stay together."

Roger Dobbs nodded in agreement.

"Then I'll go and see Mr Santini …." He frowned at her now.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. I'm not a prisoner here, Roger, and as a civilian I have much more freedom than you guys do," she told him with a genuine smile now.

"I do have a life outside this place, thank God, days off and free time off the base. How else do you think I'm going to meet up with my back up, and my new father-in-law?" She chuckled, and Roger Dobbs began to put two and two together, realising that the reason why he hadn't seen her around the base after he got out of the medical facility yesterday, was because she had obviously been told to go home, her civilian home off base, to recover and take the day off.

"I really was worried about you, Sara …." He told her sincerely now, and watched something in her eyes soften toward him, just a little. "Do you have any idea who might want you out of the way?" He asked, somewhat reluctantly now.

"Now that I am reasonably sure that it isn't you …. No. I don't have a damned clue. That's what's so frustrating, Roger. I'm no closer to finding out who is behind any of this than when I first arrived here …."

"Me neither."

"What a team, huh!" She grew somber again for a moment and he knew that she was thinking of her poor murdered sister.

"Whoever is behind this, Roger, is very smart, and means business. I think we've both had our one fair warning, so now we need to be extra vigilant."

"All the more reason we should work together, pool our information …."

"Which, at the moment, amounts to nothing but a hill of beans …." She sighed wistfully. "I really can't believe it could be one of the trainees …."

"Me neither."

"And maybe that's just what our guy wants …. Well, I guess we'd better get back into general circulation, Major, or someone might just get a bit suspicious, and we wouldn't want old iron drawers Jardine finding out about our little …. Secret …. Not before we've had a chance to fill him in on what's really going on."

However, instead of making to leave, she surprised him by walking toward him now, reaching out to loosely drape her arm around his waist, placing her other hand gently against his shoulder, gazing deeply into his sky blue eyes once more.

"Sara?" Dobbs couldn't help asking now as he gazed down into her big dark violet eyes. "Are we good?"

"Yes, Roger. We're good," she reached up to caress his cheek then, running her fingers lightly along his strong, chiselled jaw line.

"Sara …." He let out a ragged breath as her fingers snaked up around his neck and curled into the fine hairs at the nape, applying enough pressure to draw his face down to her own for another tender, tantalising kiss.

"Be careful …." He told her on a ragged breath as they parted at last, reaching out to lightly stroke a wisp of her hair away from her cheek.

"You too. I'll meet you in the mess hall for breakfast at 0.600. You can buy the missus a cup of coffee and we can go over what we plan to tell Jardine."

"Ma'am, yes ma'am …." He breathed as he once again leaned down to claim her lips in one last, lingering kiss before she finally pushed him away gently and swatted his butt as she helped him on his way down the first couple of concrete stairs.

"You coming?"

"In a minute or two …. Better if no-one sees us together," she reminded gently, a delicate flush on her cheeks now as the look she gave to him told him in no uncertain terms that she wished it could be different, that they didn't have to be apart for a second and he grinned back at her, the wicked twinkle in his baby blue eyes meant to convey to her that he felt exactly the same way ….

_**Soon baby, real soon ….**_

He found himself promising silently, his heart skipping a beat in his chest in anticipation.

Then finally he headed off down the stairs, his step light, his heart even lighter, despite the fact that now that he and Sara were working together, he should have felt a heavier burden of responsibility for her safety.

_**Who are you kidding, that is one gal who can take care of herself!**_


	3. Chapter 3

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Three**

Leaning carefully over the handrail, Sara Sykes watched and listened as Roger Dobbs made his rapid decent of the stairs, the squeaking sound of his thick soled shoes echoing off the concrete steps and walls, until finally they stopped, and she knew that he had taken one of the exits, probably the one on Level Ten that would take him back to the mess hall.

Maybe he would stop by there for a quick cup of coffee, before retiring for the night, she pondered dreamily, turning away from the handrail now and making her own slower decent.

_**And maybe she would stop by there herself ….**_

_**Just to get one last look at that hungry gleam in his eyes ….**_

But then again, better not, or she might not be able to tear herself away at all and that would never do, she told herself sternly as she stepped down onto the next landing and strode purposefully toward the top stair of the next flight down.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a pair of strong hands were grabbing her from behind, one clamping firmly over her mouth, effectively silencing the strangulated little gasp that escaped her lips, the other around her upper body, wrapping around her shoulders like an iron band as whoever it was began to haul her back across the flat piece of landing toward the shadows.

She had no time to protest, no time to learn whom her attacker was for in the next instant, she felt an excruciating pain at the side of her head and immediately found the world growing fuzzy and then dark around her as she passed swiftly into unconsciousness.

Once he was sure that she was indeed out cold, Guy Anders unceremoniously slung Sara Sykes over his shoulder and made his way to the nearest freight elevator and used it to convey them down to the very bowels of Project Thunderbird, the numerous access tunnels that had been incorporated in the subterranean design to allow all manner of military vehicles to drive deep under ground in the event of a nuclear war on the surface, stocking the base with everything it's occupants would need to survive a protracted Nuclear winter.

He had found the layout for the access tunnels while researching the under ground facility, and had known that it would make life much easier for him to come and go without having to worry too much about being seen.

Down here he was safe amongst the rubble and debris left behind by the Navy when they had vacated the base, and the Project Thunderbird team had sealed off the tunnels knowing that they would not be needed for what they had in mind for the facility.

For weeks now, Anders had been prowling the bowels of the base, checking the structure its self against the plans and making plans of his own that would cover his escape and keep everyone occupied while he disappeared into the desert.

While she was still unconscious, Anders removed her weapon from the waistband of her skirt and laid it down on the floor, well out of her reach while he tied Sykes' hands and feet together and then bound her around the waist to a concrete pylon which was one of the main supports for the floor above. He needed to work quickly now and didn't need the distraction of trying to keep an eye on her while she tried to think of ways of escaping, or trying to raise the alarm.

When he had done checking all the bonds and knots, he retrieved the hand gun and slipped it into his own belt and began to gather the things he needed to complete his mission.

After overhearing her conversation on the landing with Dobbs, or Stringfellow or whatever the hell he was called, Anders had known that he would have to act fast.

If he didn't, then the bitch might just prove to be as troublesome as her damned sister had been.

Now he understood why she had seemed so familiar.

He had seen her photo, on Claire Bentley's desk when he had reported for the selection interviews at the outset of the training programme.

Bentley had been the one to review all of the personnel files for Weeks, Jardine, Bristow and Williams and have them ready when each candidate arrived for interview.

He had known that something was wrong immediately, from the strange way she had looked at him, and he had immediately spotted his open file on the desk before her, and the fact that it had the wrong photo attached to the right hand sleeve.

_**Damned idiots!**_

This had been such a rush job they had not been able to get someone to intercept the paperwork before he turned up, so the real Guy Anders' photo was still pinned to the jacket.

When she had seen him looking at the picture with horror, Bentley had quickly closed the file, but she already knew that it was too late, and so had asked him out right about it.

He had told her that it must be an Admin snafu, and that somewhere his real mug shot was on the wrong file, and although she hadn't looked completely convinced, he knew that it was too late for her to do anything about it without troubling the top brass and Dr Weeks, who were by that time deeply embroiled in the selection process.

He had seen in her eyes that she was not going to let the matter drop, clever girl that she was, and he had decided that he was going to have to do something about her, suspecting that she wanted to double check her facts before laying out her suspicions to her boss, and that would mean dealing with her before she had chance to call someone at the Pentagon and check their backup files for Guy Anders' real mug shot and get his fingerprints sent out here to cross match.

After his interview, which had passed without incident, Anders had waited for Bentley to leave the office that evening, never even suspecting that she was being watched, as she first went to the gas station to top up the station wagon and then the grocery store to pick up supplies for supper with her husband, and then he had followed her home, at a discreet distance, waiting for darkness to descend.

During the night, when all was quiet and still in the neighbourhood, he had snuck out from his hiding place and he had doctored the brake line of her car.

Then, for good measure, he had dropped a pellet of the new nerve gas the Russians were working on in to the air conditioning system filter, knowing that once it was switched on, any moisture sucked in from the inside of the car, even the tiniest droplet of water from her exhaled breath, would activate it immediately, assured that whilst it was the gas that would actually kill her, it would be the worn brake line that investigators would immediately attribute as the cause of the accident.

Once he had disposed of Bentley it had been a simple task to get someone in to replace the photo on his personnel jacket, and that had been that.

After overhearing her conversation with Dobbs, Anders knew that he hadn't been quite as clever as he had first thought, and that whilst they still weren't sure whom was really the saboteur, they now had a place to start digging.

It wouldn't take them long to finally get to him, and he had no desire to be around when that happened.

He had had to make a quick decision.

Let Dobbs and Sykes go to Colonel Jardine with their fairy story about being married, and allow them to keep poking around ...

Or eliminate them.

He would dearly have loved to punch that smug look off of Dobbs face, but as he had been the first to leave, sauntering down the stairs like a love struck teen, Anders had had to satisfy himself with silencing Sykes.

By the time anyone realised that something had happened to her, he planned to be long gone.

He already had a jeep gassed up and waiting for him, and he knew the tunnel he needed to take to get straight to the surface, and as he set to work, pulling out the things he needed from the knapsack on the floor, he toyed with the idea of leaving Sykes here, then as a nasty grin began to spread across his face, he suddenly had a much better idea of what to do with her.

Her sister had died quickly, but for all the trouble she was causing him, he wanted Sara Sykes to have a much harder death, something long and lingering and decidedly painful ….

Oh yes, he knew exactly what he was going to do with the meddlesome Dr Sara Sykes ….

Some considerable time later, Sara Sykes let out a soft little groan of pain as she began to feel the ache in her temple where, she realised; someone had used the butt end of a gun to knock her out and she opened her eyes gingerly.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the unusual gloom around her, but then she was immediately focused, as Guy Anders stepped out from beside her into her direct line of sight, glaring at her malevolently, waving her own gun in her face.

Sara tried to struggle, but instantly found that her hands and feet were tied, and that she also seemed to be anchored to something pretty solid by a thick coil of rope around her middle.

"Back with us I see, doctor …." He sneered, leaning down closer to check her bonds then returned to where he had been fixing a detonator into a block of plastic explosive.

He squatted down now and attached the wires on the other end of the detonator to a small black box with twin terminals on the top, which Sykes immediately recognised as some kind of timing device.

She began to squirm and tried to cry out, but her mouth was covered by sticky silver duct tape, and all Guy Anders did in response to her outcries was to laugh like a maniac as he tightened the connectors around the wires on each of the terminals to make a circuit and then set the timer.

Somewhere deep down on a subconscious level, Sara Sykes knew that it was futile to struggle, but she had never been the kind of girl to sit back and wait to die.

She had a natural drive to survive, and her father had instilled in her over the years the edict that you never gave in, you fought until every last breath in your body was gone, every last ounce of strength depleted, and then you dug deep and found some more, because survival was paramount.

There was no way that she was going out with a whimper.

_**No, idiot, looks like you are going to go out with a ruddy great bang!**_ A little voice scoffed in the back of her mind, and she wondered if she was on the verge of hysteria now, as she watched Guy Anders merrily putting together another bomb.

Was it really any wonder?

Here she was, trussed up to a concrete post like a Victorian lady in her tight lace corset, and watching a madman playing with plastic explosive like it was Play Dough for crying out loud!

A mad man who up until only a few hours ago had seemed so innocent and harmless and genuine ….

Who knew?

Who would ever have guessed that it was _**him**_.

No-one.

She had been right when she had told Dobbs that whoever it was behind the troubles here at Thunderbird was smart, and meant business.

He had cleverly covered his tracks, made certain that he was involved in one of those incidents, to draw suspicion away from himself, and then merrily gone about his business.

A quiet, unassuming, modest, down to earth Joe ….

Guy Anders ….

The man voted least likely to ….

_**But why?**_

Sara began to bang the heels of her shoes into the concrete beneath them, drumming loudly to make as much noise as she could, screaming through the duct tape on her mouth, unintelligible as it was, she needed to get his attention.

If she was going to die, she at least wanted to know why.

"Settle down, dear doctor, this particular little party isn't in your honour," Anders told her in low, reasonable tones, although from the flush on his cheeks, the quiver in his hand and the glittering in his watery blue eyes, Sara Sykes practiced physician's eyes saw all too clearly that he was far from sane, rational or calm.

Something had obviously rattled him.

"No, I've got other plans for you, Sara …. May I call you Sara, or would you refer Psycho? Whatever …." He shrugged absently. "See my dear doctor, if you were here when this little lot went up, there wouldn't be much of anything left for them to find, not even teeny tiny pieces, and that wouldn't do, because I then no-one would know what happened to you …."

Again Sara Sykes made as much noise as she could, not in protest now, but to encourage him to talk some more.

He suddenly seemed to like the sound of his own voice, and he was the only one who could provide her with the answers that she so desperately needed.

And maybe, just maybe she could buy herself a little time to try to get her self loose from these wretched ropes ….

Maybe buy a little time for someone to notice that she had suddenly disappeared.

Although that was wishful thinking, she told herself, because now that chow was over, everyone would have gone off to pursue their respective evening past times before retiring to bed.

Hell, she had no idea what time it was …. No idea how long she had been unconscious ...

It could be the middle of the night for all she knew!

_**Face it kid, you're on your own!**_

Her breath was coming in shallow, ragged gasps because she couldn't breathe properly through her mouth and her knees were shaking, knocking together as she watched Anders set aside the plastic explosive he was working on and pick up another piece to start all over.

How many of those damned things was he making?

Enough to blow Thunderbird sky high!

_**So try stalling him, distract him ….**_

_**Do something to slow him down!**_

"What was that doc? Oh? I see. You're curious?"

He turned cold eyes on her now, a crooked, manic kind of smile tugging at his lips as he waved the plastic explosive at her uncaringly now.

"You want to know why?" He guessed, watching the way her eyes darted around the basement, obviously looking for a way to escape, or something to distract him with.

"Ok doc, I'll shoot the breeze with you a little." The smile grew even more ugly and twisted, and Sykes felt her heart knocking against her ribs. "So, I guess you want to know why someone like me suddenly does something like this?"

Sykes drummed her heels into the concrete in affirmation of his supposition now, nodding vigorously.

"Well, you see doc, there's your first mistake. A man like me? Guy Anders?"

He watched as realisation dawned in her unusual dark blue eyes and knew that finally the penny had dropped.

"That's right, Sara. Smart girl," he said in a weird, singsong kind of voice now. "The real Guy Anders is somewhere at the bottom of a ravine in Yosemite National Park. Guess he must have had an accident …."

He threw his head back then and laughed. It was a sickening sound and made Sara Sykes blood run cold in her veins as she realised that this man had finally gone over the edge, and nothing she could say or do would deter him from his final course of action.

Still, while she had his attention focused on her, he wasn't finishing making his bombs ….

She drummed her heels into the concrete again, trying to shout and scream through the duct tape and Anders, or whoever he really was returned his eyes to her, something cold and hard and impenetrable on his face now.

"Still curious to know what drives a man like me, doc?" She nodded frantically in response. "You'd never understand, Sara …."

"Try me!" she spat out through the duct tape, but it sounded just like a grunt.

"What was that? Oh …. Ok …. You want to spend your last few hours on this planet psychoanalysing me, go ahead …." He shrugged absently again, his eyes momentarily dropping to the lump of high explosive in his hand.

"It's simple, doc. Greed," he sighed deeply. "I am a man of simple but expensive tastes, and I found myself in a position to have the kind of life I believed I deserved, without bothering my conscience too much in the process. I'm not a moralist, doctor, but I do believe in the free market place, where everyone has an equal chance to have what everyone else has."

"This new fighter would give our side an unfair advantage, and because of that, our enemies might very well be inclined to build something bigger, better, faster, stronger and more deadly than us, just to keep ahead of us in the game, the race, so I decided, for a price of course, to make sure that our friends over the pond there, behind the Iron Curtain had the opportunity to play catch up, so that they would at least have the same advantages as us, and wouldn't need to find something better to blow us out of the sky, or even off the face of the earth …. I agreed to run a little interference …." He paused to take in a deep breath, pale blue eyes still glittering maniacally, as he watched her taking in all that he said.

"But then our Red friends decided to change the rules, they moved the goal posts, doc. They fell behind with the development of their own new fighter, and they really do have only themselves to blame, treating it like it was some new tractor coming off of a production line in a factory in Mirmansk! "

"They got sloppy, tried to cut corners and used defective parts, that kind of thing, and it was costing them dearly, at least in time. They couldn't keep up with our schedule, so they upped the ante. At first they only wanted me to slow things down, then they wanted me to get the project suspended for a while, then, when they realised that they just couldn't catch up, they wanted me to make sure that the project was closed down, permanently, and as a little added incentive to make sure I co-operated, the bastards stole my family …. My beautiful wife and sons …."

His voice suddenly caught in his throat now, and Sykes watched the play of emotions as they travelled across his face, genuine fear and grief, and for just a split second, she could understand the position he had found himself in.

"They spirited them away in the middle of the night, and promised me that if I didn't co-operate, I could not only forget my nice new cushy life of wealth and luxury in Cuba …. Well I'm sure a smart girl like you, Sara, can guess the rest. Needless to say, I want more than just the six feet of earth they promised for me and my family if I didn't co-operate. So, here I am …." He concluded by slipping the slim metallic pin of the detonator into the pristine, pliable plastic explosive with a flourish.

"And now you're wondering where you fit in to all of this, I suppose doc? How you got so lucky?" He sneered now, curling his top lip back to reveal his white top teeth.

Sara Sykes found herself nodding hypnotically, breathing hard through her nose, her heart racing in her chest as she suddenly saw all too clearly where she fitted in.

"Well gee, now doc, I guess what it all boils down to, is you get to die today because your precious sister was just too damned good at her job …."

Suddenly she was sobbing, hard, unable to stop the convulsions that pulsed through her as she fought to draw in air, fighting for every breath, sucking in the duct tape in an effort to fill her lungs more quickly, gasping, as hot tears trickled down her cheeks.

"Smart girl that Claire, doc. Obviously took pride in doing her job well, in knowing every detail so that if someone asked, she had the answer right away. She was on to me straight away, and I couldn't have that, doc. Sorry, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, as they say …."

Sykes spluttered something unintelligible in response.

"What was that doc? Oh yeah. Bastard? Guess you're right. But there you have it. Make you feel any better?" He scoffed, watching with mild amusement as she sobbed raggedly.

"Thought not. Never mind. You just sit there and think about it while I finish my work, and try not to make yourself sick, doc, wouldn't want you to choke …."

He dropped his gaze briefly then to look down at his watch then lifted his eyes back to settle on her anguished face once more.

"Almost done here, and time is marching on. Just need to set these babies, and put them to bed, and then you and I are going to go for a nice little drive."

Sykes wriggled and squirmed and tried to make as much noise as she could, fighting to free herself from her bonds, but it was useless.

"Oh, you don't like that idea, Sara? Too bad. I thought you might enjoy one last sunrise over the desert …. Pity good ole Roger can't join us, but I think I know how to show you a good time, doc …."


	4. Chapter 4

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Four**

Roger Dobbs woke early, but he did not feel at all refreshed by his six hours of restless, troubled slumber, and lay, arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, for what seemed like an eternity.

Trying to figure out what had unsettled him so.

Trying desperately, to piece things together.

He couldn't move beyond the feeling that they were missing something.

Something so damned obvious, it was right there, under their noses.

Too damned distracted.

He let out a deep sigh.

It was so unlike him.

He was troubled by the way his personal feelings for Sara Sykes kept getting in the way of his usually clear and rational thought processes.

It was so damned disconcerting, that every time she got near to him, he found himself unable to think about anything else but her.

_**God, she had bewitched him ….**_

And maybe, if he stopped fighting it, maybe if he accepted that it was possible that he could feel all those wonderful things again ….

Even so soon after Gabrielle ….

If he just accepted that what he felt was natural and normal, then maybe he could relax and allow himself to enjoy it.

And in turn, this would clear the fog that seemed to cloud his brain whenever she was near him.

Intoxicating him with her perfume and her smile and her quiet confidence.

He was human after all, and not immune to the charms of a very sexy and extremely intelligent and articulate woman.

He should rejoice in that.

Not feel ashamed of it.

It was not a betrayal of all that he had felt for Gabrielle, of what she had meant to him.

It was her gift to him.

She had opened up his heart again after all these years, and opened the door to the future.

Her legacy to him was the gift of enabling him to love.

Even if it was someone else.

He closed his eyes tightly and Sara Sykes face swam before his eyes, smiling softly, that suggestive twinkle in her eyes, leaving him in no doubt as to how she felt about him too.

And he knew that it had nothing to do with the part they were about to play as loving newly weds.

He recalled the way she felt in his arms.

Firstly when he had carried her, coughing and spluttering, fighting for every breath, out of the burning lab, she had felt so light, so fragile, but there was strength in her too. He had felt it as she had wrapped her arms around his neck and clung on to him as he hurried out of the burning room.

And then, he called to mind the way she had felt in his arms last night, as she had poured out her grief over her sister's murder.

How good it had felt to hold her, to feel her lithe, warm body close to his own, her lips on his ….

He recalled now how she had welcomed his arms around her and his lips pressed urgently against her own, as they both finally succumbed to their mutual need.

Satisfying their mutual hunger.

Except that it hadn't.

It had left him feeling even more in need.

Wanting more.

_**Dammit, woman, get out of my head and let me think!**_

But still he clung to the image of her in his mind's eye.

Until in utter frustration he sat up in bed and threw his pillow across the room, narrowly missing Frank Campbell who was snoring softly in the other bunk on the other side of the room.

_**Got to concentrate! **_

_**Keep your mind on what you were sent here to do.**_

_**Think! **_

_**Think. Piece it all together. There has to be something. **_

_**There just has to ….**_

He tried to slot together all the information they had, which as Sara had pointed out, didn't really amount to anything concrete, and still nothing obvious jumped out at him.

As he showered and then returned to his room to dress, quietly, Roger Dobbs could not shake an uneasiness that settled in the pit of his stomach.

A sense of foreboding.

Something was coming.

Something was off.

But, he didn't know what, only that it made his nerves jangle and set the hairs on the back of his neck on end.

Leaving Campbell still snoring softly, Dobbs let himself out of his room and made his way to the mess hall where he collected two cups of steaming black coffee and carried them on a tray to a vacant table in the far corner, away from prying eyes and curious stares.

He sipped at his coffee, savouring the rush of caffeine into his bloodstream, and waited for Sara to join him as they had arranged.

He wasn't looking forward to explaining himself to Jardine, or to Archangel for that matter, but it had to be done, so he would endure whatever wrath they aimed at him, and then maybe they would leave him and Sara to get on with the job in hand.

_**Sara.**_

_**Dammit, there she was again …. **_

_**Filling his mind, his senses ….**_

Last night, when she had looked deep into his eyes, her supple, slender body pressed close into his own, it had been one of the hardest things he had ever had to do, to make himself pull away, when what he had really wanted was to accept the invitation he had clearly seen in her eyes.

In that moment, she had laid bare her soul to him.

No more pretence.

No more games.

The hunger and the love he saw there was real, and it was all for him.

Regrettably, he had had to be the one to be strong.

For the sake of the mission ….

_**Who was he kidding? **_

For the sake of his own sanity more like, for to succumb to the passion that he could see in her eyes, that he felt tightening his guts and making his heart race frantically in his chest, he knew that he would be lost forever.

_**Pull yourself together. **_

_**Time to get serious.**_

The mess hall was busy, plenty of traffic in and out, in a constant flow and no-one seemed to take any notice of the fact that he was sitting alone with two cups of coffee on the table before him.

He drank his coffee and waited, eyes never wandering too far from the door on the other side of the room, waiting patiently.

He drank Sara's coffee and waited some more.

When she had not arrived by six thirty, he decided to go and look for her, figuring that she had maybe overslept.

He didn't know where her quarters were located, and thought twice about suddenly turning up there and maybe embarrassing her with her bunkmate, if she had one, but he also couldn't get away from the uneasy feeling gnawing away in his belly.

There was only one thing for it, try the medical facility first. Perhaps her slumbers had been as disturbed as his own had been, and she had decided to go to the office for a while before joining him, and had maybe lost track of time.

However, when he got there, there was no sign of Sara anywhere.

And now he wasn't just worried.

He was afraid.

"Hey flyboy, what's up? Look like you lost a dollar and found a dime. Bust up with the missus?" Nora Kelly flounced into the examination room and grinned, highly amused to find him standing there looking lost and vulnerable.

"Have you seen Sara?" Dobbs demanded, ignoring Kelly's amusement.

"Morning to you too, sonny. You two had a fight?" She quizzed, regarding him with open curiosity now.

"What?" he snarled, then wondered why he should be so surprised that the woman had her suspicions about what he and Sara felt for each other.

"No. Have you seen her?" Dobbs demanded again. "It's important," he snarled now, running out of patience with her antics.

"Cool your burners, jet jockey, I'm sure whatever it is that happened between you two, it will just turn out to be a storm in a teacup …" she grinned again now. "I don't know who you two are trying to kid, honey, but let me tell you …. You can't hide from Nora. All these weeks, I thought you were gonna set the place on fire with those long, lingering, passionate, scorching looks you kept giving each other! I tell ya, you two better hurry up and get your act together! I've got twenty dollars …."

"Lieutenant Kelly," Dobbs growled through clenched teeth, halting her diatribe, then drew in a deep, shoulder raising breath, then let it out as a long, ragged sigh, forcing himself to control his anger and irritation. "Just answer the question Lieutenant. Have you seen Sara this morning?"

"No, but I only just came on duty myself. Bit of a slow start this morning. The gunny got home from manoeuvres last night and wanted to do a little partying to make up for lost time …."

Kelly noticed the impatient look on his face and stopped herself from rambling on, wondering as she did so what had gotten him so rattled, and suddenly didn't like the direction her thoughts were taking her.

"But she's usually here before me. Maybe she got sick and needed the ladies room on the way here," she mused aloud, because suddenly the look on his face, and the way he was behaving were beginning to get to her.

Making her own anxiety levels rise.

What if something had happened to Sara?

Dobbs watched her open features now and was relieved to see from the concern etched into her face that he was finally getting the urgency of his concerns over to her.

"You don't think the lab fire was an accident, do you sonny? You think maybe someone is looking to hurt Sara?"

Dobbs let out another ragged sigh.

"I don't know, Lieutenant. All I know is that we made an appointment for this morning, and she didn't show up for breakfast."

"Was she ok the last time you saw her?"

"I haven't seen her since chow time last night, and no, we didn't have a fight," he added for good measure, in case she thought that Sara was hiding herself away from him because he had somehow upset her.

"You're really worried about her, aren't you?"

"Ma'am, _**yes**_ ma'am," Dobbs affirmed emphatically. "If you were me, wouldn't you be?"

"I guess that answers my next question …. You really do care about her, don't you?"

Dobbs nodded mutely.

"Ok …. If she was sick, or hurt, and she couldn't get to you, the most logical place for her to come would be here. She would know that there is always someone on duty. Someone who could help her."

Nora Kelly confirmed what Dobbs himself was thinking.

"Let me just go check that no-one else has seen her. I'll check the locker room and all the bathrooms too," she offered. "Don't worry, kid, we'll find her, and it'll be ok."

Roger Dobbs did not find himself reassured.

He had a horrible feeling that somehow, Sara Sykes had given herself away.

Or maybe she had found something after they had left each other last night.

Or, maybe she was on to something and didn't know it, but someone couldn't take the chance that she might accidentally put two and two together and come up with four.

And a feeling of dread settled over his heart as he tried not to imagine what might have happened to her.

Between them Nora Kelly and Roger Dobbs searched every inch of the medical wing, but there was no sign of Sara Sykes anywhere, and no-one had seen her since the previous evening.

"What about her room, sonny? You did check her room didn't you?"

"I don't know where she is billeted," he confirmed to the now anxious Lieutenant.

"Oh for crying out loud, man! Follow me!"

Lieutenant Kelly led Dobbs through a maze of corridors until they stepped out into the brightly illuminated corridor on Level Fifteen where Sara Sykes's quarters were located and then he stood in the corridor outside her door, enduring the smirks and curious stares of passing base personnel on their way to and from the showers, with his most fearsome glower pinned on his face, as Kelly knocked on her door, then called her name softly, then pounded frantically on the door and shouting with an increasing sense of alarm and a raised note of concern in her voice.

Finally, taking matters into his own hands, Dobbs pushed past her and tried the door. Trying the handle, he found that it was unlocked. Throwing it open, he looked around inside, but there was no sign of Sara in the tidy room. Her bed was neatly made, her intoxicating perfume hung in the air.

Nothing was out of place.

In fact, Dobbs registered with a growing sense of misgiving, there was no sign that she had even spent the night here at all.

_**Ok. **_

_**Don't jump to conclusions.**_

**Too damned late for that ….**

He just hoped he wasn't too damned late to help Sara ….

"What the hell is going on here, flyboy?" Nora Kelly demanded her expression a mixture of exasperation and anxiety.

She had been standing in the doorway behind him, taking in the neat, empty room beyond, and was startled when he suddenly span on his heel and shoved his way past her, a dark, foreboding expression on his face.

"I don't know, but I sure as hell mean to find out!"

"Where are you going?" She called after him in incredulity as he marched briskly and purposefully back down the corridor, but Roger Dobbs had no more time for words.

As far as he was concerned, the fact that Sara Sykes seemed to have suddenly disappeared into thin air meant that something terrible had happened to her, and he had no intention of wasting any more time.


	5. Chapter 5

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Five**

"Major! Major!"

"What the hell!" Colonel Thomas Jardine exclaimed as Roger Dobbs stormed into his office unannounced, slamming the door behind him, in poor Mary Harmon's astonished face.

"Ah ha! Just the man I wanted to see …. What the devil is this all about!"

The red faced Colonel demanded, waving a sheaf of papers in Dobbs face, and the other man knew immediately what he was referring too.

The perimeter guard had obviously made his report, but right now, Dobbs didn't have time for that.

"Sara is missing," Dobbs spat out without preamble.

"Missing?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Colonel, Lieutenant Kelly and I have just turned the medical wing inside out, and there is no sign of her. We checked her room, and her bed doesn't look as if it has even been slept in!"

"Calm down, Major …."

"Colonel, wake up and smell the coffee! You know what has been going on around here, and you know what Sara was trying to do. Don't you understand what this means?"

"I understand that you seem to have a lot of explaining to do! Now sit down and calm yourself man, and then give me a sit-rep. You can begin by telling me exactly what the two of you were doing up top last night!"

"Colonel …."

"That is an order, Major!"

Reigning in his anger and impatience, Roger Dobbs carefully explained about whom he really was and what he was doing here at Project Thunderbird, Sara Sykes suspicions about him and the fact that the guard had stumbled upon them while she was in the process of trying to get out of him his real purpose for being here.

He then went on to explain that she had accepted his explanation and that they had planned to come to see the Colonel together this morning to fill him in.

"Another damned cuckoo in the nest!" Jardine seethed, but aside from the heavy flush to his cheeks, Dobbs could see genuine concern in his eyes now.

Poor guy must be feeling that he had no control over his own command right about now.

"Everything I have told you can be verified by the agency I work for, specifically a man called Michael Coldsmith Briggs III, but the only thing we should be concentrating on right now, Colonel is the fact that Sara Sykes is missing."

"There are any number of explanations why she didn't turn up for your appointment. Perhaps she wisely decided to get some more back up from outside, from Major Farmer. I can't help thinking that you have gotten yourself worked up over something and nothing."

"Something and nothing!" Dobbs exploded, then noting the other man's startled reaction to his vehemence, tried to keep a lid on his temper.

"Do I really have to spell it out for you, Colonel? An undercover operative for the Military Police has suddenly disappeared. To my way of thinking, that can only mean one thing. Someone is on to her."

"On to her?" Jardine demanded. "How?"

Now the look on his face showed that he was finally beginning to understand just how serious things could be, and that it wasn't just a wild over reaction by the other man.

"I don't know. Maybe she got a little too close, made someone uncomfortable, suspicious of her. Our traitor may just have been beginning to feel the heat and decided to remove Sara from the equation. And, if that is the case …. If someone was on to her …. Sooner or later, they will be on to me too …. Figuring that we are working together. So, we have to act quickly."

"But you don't know anything for certain. And we have no idea where she might be."

"We can take an educated guess, Sir. I know where _**I **_would go, if it were me."

Both men were silent for a brief moment, their expressions solemn, and echoing each other's thoughts.

That that place wasn't a million miles away, and was guaranteed to bring the desired result without any effort on the saboteur's part.

Death Valley would adequately do the job for him, and allow him the chance to simply slip away.

"Me too son, me too. Alright, I will concede that you might be on to something there, but, before I send men out to scour the desert for her, I think it might be prudent to do a thorough search of the base, wouldn't want the men to head off out into the desert only for the good doctor to turn up stuffed into the back of a closet or store cupboard."

"While you're at it, do a head count. It'd be interesting to know if anyone else is missing."

"Good idea. Son, do you have any idea who we are dealing with?"

"No Sir, but I guess he has well and truly shown his hand now."

"Indeed. I'll go see Captain Bristow and Colonel Williams and let them know what is going on."

"Thank you, Sir," Dobbs reached out and snatched up the telephone receiver on the Colonel's desk. "How do I get an outside line?"

"Ask Mary, she'll get the number for you. Just who is it you are calling?"

"An old friend," Dobbs replied then spoke into the telephone receiver requesting Mary Harmon to get him the number of the motel where Dominic Santini was holed up.

While Dobbs waited for the connection, Colonel Jardine left the office, briefly, to confer with his colleagues and returned a few moments later, walking in on the tail end of Dobb's conversation.

"Get the Lady out of mothballs Dom, and get your ass here, ASAP!"

"Wanna tell me what's going on?" Dominic Santini growled sleepily into his end of the telephone line.

"No time Dom, just get here, and make it snappy!"

"I got that information you wanted. Archangel just called a couple of minutes before you. Your lady doctor ain't just a lady doctor, String, she's an MP!"

"I know, Dom …. Now get the hell out of there and get here as fast as you can …."

"Captain Bristow has agreed to organise a search of the base, and we are going to do a fire drill," Jardine advised as Dobbs slammed the telephone receiver back down into its cradle.

"We decided that it was the only way to make sure everyone was accounted for, without causing too much suspicion. After all, we don't know for sure that our saboteur is involved in Dr Sykes disappearance," he advised.

"Fine." Dobbs spoke through clenched teeth, irritated that the man could still be harbouring serious doubts.

"C'mon then. What are we waiting for? Let's get started."


	6. Chapter 6

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Six**

Somewhere in the heart of the desert ….

Sara Sykes was drifting in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of her surroundings, and her predicament.

She had no idea how long she had been there.

Time had no meaning.

Endless.

Baking.

Reason told her that she had been here for quite some time, for she had gone beyond the point of feeling any one specific pain.

All was pain.

Everything seemed as though it were on fire.

There was no reprieve from the fierce, unforgiving desert heat. Even the desert wind scorched as it caressed her body, scouring away the exposed areas of skin on her face, arms and legs.

She could not move.

Everything was numb.

She had been drifting, in and out ….

Her head was splitting, and she let out a deep moan of anguish as she recalled that he had used his gun to knock her out again.

When he had finally done using the back of his hand, and his fist on her face ….

_**Why hadn't he just used it to kill her? **_

It would certainly have been swifter, and more merciful than this ….

_**Damn him!**_

It did not help that she was still trussed up like the proverbial Thanks Giving turkey, bound at wrists and ankles, the ropes binding her, intricately interwoven together so that if she moved so much as an inch, either wrist or ankle, the other end of the bonds tightened around the tops of the other leg or arm, biting into her already sore skin and arching her backward until she felt like her spine was breaking in an uncontrollable, death spasm.

Tiny trickles of perspiration had, intermittently, rolled down the sides of her face, nose, mouth, chin and neck, but they had dried long ago. She had no more sweat left in her, and the salt left by the dried trails of perspiration was stinging her skin where it clung to her, along with tiny grains of sand deposited by the odd puff of blistering wind. A Desert devil, as it skimmed over her on its way.

Her skin had gone beyond simple sunburn.

She felt raw.

As though she had been flayed.

She felt exactly what she was.

Utterly exposed.

She knew that she was dying.

The sun was beating down on her, almost directly from above, which meant that it was almost at its highest point.

It would soon be the hottest and deadliest time of day.

It was only a matter of time now.

A few precious minutes, in which to make her peace and prepare to enter the great unknown.

She was done for.

No two ways about it.

No-one would find her out here.

He, Guy Anders ….

He had made certain of it.

Her own fault, she admitted wryly to herself. She should have been more careful.

More vigilant.

_**You focused on the wrong strong silent one!**_

She berated herself harshly.

One good thing.

She didn't have enough moisture left in her to weep one single self piteous tear at the thought of her death.

She couldn't even swallow, her mouth was so dry, and as a doctor, she was painfully aware of what was happening to her body.

The kind of death she could look forward too.

"No dammit," she croaked her voice as dry as the desert and as brittle as dead leaves in the Fall. "Can't die. Can't give up. Be strong."

Another puff of hot desert wind deposited still more sand in her nose and mouth, and she was suddenly consumed by a fit of harsh, hacking coughs, fighting to draw in each precious, burning breath, knowing that this was probably the reason why he had left the gag off.

_**Sick, sadistic sonofabitch ….**_

She thought sourly.

_**Oh God ….**_

_**Help me. **_

_**Please ….**_

But she knew that it was hopeless.

No-one would come.

It would be tantamount to signing their own death warrant.

Had anyone even missed her yet?

"Roger …."

His name was uttered like a prayer, to be carried away by the hot desert wind, his arrogant, stubborn, beautiful face swimming before her eyes now.

That handsome, rugged and oh so wonderful face ….

And those eyes ….

As deep and blue as the Pacific, and just as hard to fathom.

She had seen the fire burning there, last night, when they had kissed. Had welcomed his strong, sure arms around her, delighted by the answering glint in his eye to her unasked question ….

_**Dammit, it was so unfair!**_

Why couldn't their paths have crossed some other time?

Under different circumstances?

When they were free to pursue their own interests, instead of having to put their mission above everything else?

What would it have been like, to have met him in a bar or the grocery line and struck up a conversation with him?

Would they have felt the same way about each other, or was the depth of their attraction for each other fuelled by the peril they were both in? By the excitement of being undercover and pretending to be people they were not, in a situation that neither of them was used to?

Lowering their defences, and their resistance.

Would they have had a chance, away from Thunderbird?

Now she would never know.

No.

It probably wouldn't have worked for them anyway.

Because they would not have been the same people.

"Roger!" Another dry sob escaped from her lips

_**No …. **_

_**Not Roger.**_

_**Stringfellow.**_

_**String.**_

She would never get used to calling him that.

She had gotten to know him as Roger Dobbs, had fallen in love with Roger Dobbs.

Stringfellow Hawke was an unknown quantity.

_**Such a pity.**_

Roger had suited him so much better.

She suddenly found herself laughing hysterically, uncontrollably, as the laughter turned to huge, dry, convulsive sobs.

_**Fool ….**_

It's not the name that matters, but the man.

_**And Lord, what a man he was.**_

Stringfellow Hawke.

Roger Dobbs.

A rose by any other name ….

And for just one magical moment, that stellar brilliance and cosmic force had touched her life.

He would miss her.

He would know that something was wrong, when she didn't show up for their breakfast date.

He would come looking for her.

Of course he would.

He had a hero complex the size of Wyoming, and was driven by his need to do the right thing.

To try to save the world.

And for an instant, she thought that her heart had been ripped out of her chest, so deep was the stabbing sensation there.

And she found herself wishing that she could weep ….

For him.

_**Poor baby.**_

To see her. Like this ….

No-one should ever be confronted with that kind of horror.

Especially if it had been someone that you cared about.

Loved?

_**Did he love her?**_

Did it really matter?

She loved him, and the last thing she wanted was for him to be haunted by the horror of her final moments on this earth, for the rest of his life.

_**Please God ….**_

_**Have some mercy!**_

_**Don't let it be him that finds me..**_

_**Spare him that nightmare.**_

_**Please ….**_

_**Please ….**_

_**For pity's sake ….**_

_**Don't let that be his last memory of me.**_

_**Please ….**_


	7. Chapter 7

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Seven**

"Anything?" Dobbs demanded as he joined Colonel Jardine in the mess hall and watched the top brass calling out the role call and everyone present sounding off in turn, as their names were called.

"Not yet," Jardine sighed deeply, his eyes scanning the crowded mess hall, but there was still no sign of Sara Sykes, and he had called the medical wing to check that she had not turned up there when the klaxon announcing the fire drill had sounded.

During a routine fire drill, when the klaxon sounded, everyone on base was supposed to report to their duty station, or to the nearest assembly point, and then when it was over, the section chiefs would report all present and accounted for and then things would go back to normal.

Sara Sykes should have shown up at the medical wing's assembly point, but if she had been anywhere else on the base, she would have gone to the nearest assembly point and indicated to the station chief who she was and where she was from.

"But it's a big place, Major. I've got people scouring the whole building, including the access tunnels in the basement area that the Navy sealed off when they handed the place over to us to use." The Colonel informed him in businesslike tones. "Where better to hide the good doctor, eh?"

"Anyone missing?" Dobbs demanded again, his own eyes now scanning the faces in the crowded mess hall, spotting two of his fellow trainees, who had obviously been in the mess hall finishing breakfast when the alarm had sounded.

Chuck McCrea and Eugene Webber were sitting at a table littered with the debris of their breakfast and sipping casually on their coffee, which indicated to Dobbs that neither man suspected that this was anything other than a routine fire drill.

"All in good time, my friend. A lot of bodies to account for," Jardine tried to calm Dobbs down, knowing that anger and genuine concern were behind his impulsive and impatient behaviour.

"Sara's life is at stake, Colonel," Dobbs reminded angrily.

"I know, son, but I can't risk any more lives, sending them out into the desert, until we know for sure that she isn't lying injured somewhere down here, first."

The klaxon sounding the alarm suddenly stopped and the Colonel's voice was unusually loud in the sudden lull in sound, then the telephone on the far wall rang out shrill and the Colonel spotted one of his aids beckoning him to take the call.

When he returned to Dobbs side, the younger man could tell that something very bad had transpired, for his usually flaccid cheeks were suddenly bloodless and there was something else in the man's eyes that made Roger Dobbs blood run cold in his veins.

"Bad news Major …. Our search turned up a body. No Major, not the good doctor, Major Malcom Shaw," Jardine informed before Dobbs had a chance to ask, sighing raggedly before continuing with his report.

"Seems someone tried to suffocate him with his pillow while he was sleeping, but when that failed, they used the pillow as a silencer, when they blew his brains out …."

"Ohmygod …."

"And there are two other people unaccounted for," Jardine told Dobbs with another ragged sigh, any and all pretence that he did not think that the recent events at Thunderbird were serious gone now. "Dr Sara Sykes, and Major Guy Anders, USAF."

"Anders?"

Dobbs couldn't believe what he was hearing, but then suddenly he wondered why.

Of all the men he had been in close contact with over the past few weeks, Anders had been the one who had resisted any attempts to get close, to form any kind of bond with.

He had been the hardest one to read.

The quietest and most inconspicuous one of the bunch.

Keeping himself to himself, never drawing attention to himself.

And, he was Shaw's bunk mate!

Had Shaw been on to something?

Had he gotten suspicious, walked in on something by accident, and that was what had gotten him killed?

Or had they been in it together and had fallen out over whether to get Sykes out of the picture or not?

They wouldn't know anything for sure until they caught up with Anders.

But yes, it made sense now.

Anders had been doing what Dobbs himself had tried to do in the beginning. Not doing anything that would single him out from the others.

_**Dammit.**_

Anders.

"I know. I find it hard to believe too. But that's not all. Our search for the good doctor turned up a little something that neither one of us might have expected …." Jardine's voice trailed away then, leaving Dobb's frowning deeply at him. "Seems friend Anders left us with another …. Situation …."

"_**Emergency evacuation. This is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill, all personnel report top side …."**_ A deep male voice suddenly intoned over the PA system and now Dobbs found himself staring at the Colonel.

"There appear to be several incendiary devices placed at structurally significant locations around the base, Major …. Timed devices, which seem to have been preset to detonate at 12.00 …." Colonel Jardine explained watching as the well trained military people in the mess hall adhered to the command over the PA system and filed calmly toward the exit.

"Can they be disarmed?"

"I guess it's my job to find out, Major."

"What about Sara?"

"I'll organise that search party, give this lot something to do while we sort out this little irritation. I suppose you want to be included?"

"There's no time. Every second is precious to Sara. Leave it to me, Colonel. I've already set the ball rolling, and I'll be much quicker than your search party."

"What? What are you going to do, Dobbs?"

"Don't you worry about me, I've got my own methods, and it's probably better if you don't know the details. Plausible deniability, Sir. My ride should be here any minute. I'll keep you informed, but right now, finding Sara alive is _**my **_main priority."

"Understood. Just one other thing. Anders …."

"You can have what's left when I'm done with him," Dobb's anger burned fiercely in his blue eyes now.

"I understand what you must be feeling. But, we need him alive, Dobbs."

Roger Dobbs let out a deep, resentful sigh, but nodded his understanding.

There were so many questions that only Guy Anders could answer, and a lot of people waiting to hear what he had to say.

"Good luck, Sir …."

"You too, Major …. Be careful, I don't want to have to send out a search party for you too."

"Sir, Yes Sir!" Dobbs offered the Colonel a crisp salute and then darted out of the mess hall.


	8. Chapter 8

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Eight**

Stringfellow Hawke rode the elevator up to the surface impatiently, his mood volatile.

Angry and frustrated, but mostly angry, cursing himself for a fool a thousand times over.

_**Why hadn't he guessed that this might happen?**_

_**Why hadn't he sensed the danger that Sara Sykes might be in?**_

_**No, dammit! **_

Too busy playing the gentleman and tripping over himself to be gallant and self controlled.

Putting the mission before his own personal needs and desires.

Too damned busy listening to his conscience and his stupid, stubborn pride, instead of listening to his aching heart.

Why hadn't he just accepted the way that he felt and followed his heart? Instead of pretending that he didn't know what she had in mind.

That he couldn't see the blatant invitation in her lovely eyes.

Feel it in the softness of her warm lips, against his own.

He knew that he hadn't been fooling anyone, especially himself.

His mind conjured up an image of Sara as she had looked last night …

The smouldering passion in those gorgeous violet eyes.

And something more.

And he knew that it had been the 'something more' that had made him slam the brakes on.

He wasn't ready for that yet.

It was too soon, after Gabrielle.

But, if that was true.

Why did he feel the way that he did about Sara?

If he wasn't ready, surely he wouldn't be able to feel this way about her?

And if he wasn't ready, why did it feel so good?

So right?

Why couldn't he have been as honest, and brave about what he was feeling for her as she was with him?

If he had just followed his instinct Sara would not have been alone last night.

She would not have been such an easy target.

And God knows, he had wanted to accept her open invitation, but had been unable to take that last small step, his head over ruling his heart and his body at the last minute.

And so he had made her that promise with his eyes, hoping to take some of the sting out of his rejection of her advances.

It wasn't that he didn't feel the same way.

It was more to do with the timing, and the situation they found themselves in.

That, and the fact that he needed more time.

Time to analyse his true feelings and to decide what he really wanted with Sara Sykes, for he felt certain that she deserved so much more than he could offer her.

She deserved to be loved, and right here, right now, he didn't know if he was actually capable of that emotion any more.

They both needed a little time, he reasoned.

The situation here at Thunderbird was just too fraught and too unreal.

Back there, in the real world, with his life as Airwolf's pilot and her's as a doctor in the Army Medical Corps, things might be completely different, their feelings for each other cooled by the reality of their every day lives.

_**Damned fool!**_

He cursed himself again as the elevator ground to a halt and the doors opened on the upper levels of the administration block, and he marched down the chilled corridor to the glass door, squinting out into the brightness of the compound beyond, to await the arrival of Dominic Santini and Airwolf.

Feeling like a caged animal.

Pacing, up and down, back and forth, his whole body throbbing with nervous energy.

"C'mon, c'mon," he hissed through clenched teeth, glancing down at his watch to see just how long it had been since he left the Colonel down in the mess hall and tried to calculate how long it would take Dom to drive to the Lair, fire up Airwolf and make his way here to Thunderbird ….

It couldn't be much longer, could it?

_**Dammit Dom, haul ass!**_

And then, at last, after what seemed like an eternity but, which was, in reality, probably no more than a further ten or fifteen minutes, he heard the sound he had been waiting for.

And his heart leapt with joy.

The eerie, unique sound that was Airwolf.

The magnificent, shark like helicopter was coming in low now, kicking up a sandstorm, as Hawke yanked open the glass door, his body instantly blasted by a wave of heat and dust, as he hunkered down low and sprinted out to where Dominic Santini was setting Airwolf down.

Without missing a beat, Hawke popped the hatch and opened the door, climbing up through the dust cloud being whipped up by the downwash from Airwolf's main rotor, closing the door behind him with a soft hiss.

Dominic Santini, clad in his grey all in one Airwolf flight suit and black helmet immediately relinquished the pilot's seat to Hawke, noting as he did so, the cold, hard, determined, penetrating look on the young man's face, before retreating to his own domain in the rear engineering compartment.

"What took you so long?" Hawke snarled into the microphone inside his helmet once he had it jammed on his head and had settled at the flight controls.

"Oh happy day," Dominic Santini sighed softly in return. "Whatsup? You forgot to take your happy pill this morning?" He grumbled, curious and concerned at the same time, for he had recognised the murderous look in his young friend's eyes.

"I found out who the traitor is," Hawke informed in a gruff voice now, ignoring Santini's attempts at levity. "It's Anders, and he's got Sara …."

"Got Sara? Whaddaya mean, got Sara? Sara who? The lady doctor, Sara? Where?"

Santini grew serious now, realising whom his young friend was talking about, and instantly understanding Hawke's brusque manner.

He didn't know for sure of course, but he had been able to guess the kind of feelings that his young friend was beginning to have for that wonderfully exotic looking creature, Sara Sykes. Deny it though Hawke might to himself, he had not been able to hide it from Santini's knowing, practiced eyes.

Nor the self recrimination that went along with it, because he felt that he was betraying Gabrielle's memory and the love they had unexpectedly found.

"Out there," Hawke turned Airwolf around so that her nose was facing the vast expanse of baking, parched, barren desert.

"Madre di Dio!"

Now Dominic Santini understood.

He and Hawke had been here before.

And Santini knew it wasn't Sara Sykes that his young friend was thinking of at that moment, but Gabrielle.

_**Oh hell!**_

_**Not again.**_

"That's not all Dom, Colonel Jardine just told me that that damned nutcase has rigged the base to blow to kingdom come …." Hawke snarled. "But that's not our problem right now. We have to find Sara …."

"How long has she been gone?" Santini asked now, if somewhat reluctantly.

"All night," Hawke responded in a low, tight voice and Santini could almost feel his anger, like a physical thing now.

"String …. It's …. She's not …." Santini's voice trailed away, for he knew that he was playing with fire.

"Gabrielle," her name, uttered on a soft, low breath, Santini already wincing in anticipation of the grief and heartache that he knew he would hear in the younger man's voice, and was surprised by the lack of emotion there. The lack of vehemence.

The sadness remained, and probably always would, Santini suspected, but no longer did his young friend sound as though he were consumed by mindless grief and futile anger and bitterness.

Hawke's tone was almost reverent now.

"I know that, Dom," Hawke expelled a ragged sigh now. He knew that she wasn't Gabrielle. "It's Sara."

Hell, she wasn't even that.

Not really.

Her real name was Georgina ….

Georgie.

But, Hawke suspected that he would always think of her as Sara.

_**His Sara ….**_

"It's different this time, son."

"Too damned right it is, Dom. This time she survives," and now there was cold, hard defiance in Hawke's voice, leaving no doubt in Santini's mind of what his young friend intended to do next.

_**And God help anyone who was fool enough to get in his way.**_

"Now crank up those scanners as high as they will go. Human life signs only, Dom."

"You got it, String."

Hawke gently lifted Airwolf into the air, circling the compound slowly, silently debating with him self as to the best direction to head out and start the search for Sara Sykes, knowing that every second spent looking in the wrong place could mean the difference between life and death to her.

_**Think man, think!**_

He knew that Anders would probably not have gone in the direction of the Navy Weapons Testing Station at China Lake.

Oh yes, it would be easy enough for him to blend in there with all those other men, but not with Sara Sykes in tow.

The only conclusion Hawke could reasonably arrive at was, that Anders would have had to ditch her, the first chance he got, for she would only slow down his escape.

That could mean only one thing.

Only one place.

The heart of the desert.

With his heart racing uncontrollably in his chest, Stringfellow Hawke decided to follow a slow, spiralling outward circle, to cover more ground, fighting down the urge to go charging off at full speed.

Telling himself that they could fly right over Sara and never see her, at the kind of speeds that Airwolf was capable of.

_**No.**_

He had to take it slow and steady.

And place his trust in the reliability of the scanning equipment.

Keeping low, Hawke soon had Airwolf gliding smoothly over the contours of the desert sand.

"Anything yet, Dom?" he called out, trying not to let his fear and impatience show, for that would only rattle his old friend and distract him from the job at hand.

"Not yet. It's a big desert, String."

"Yeah."

"And a whole helluva lot of nothing …. Except sand!"

_**And snakes, and scorpions, and hungry coyotes. **_

But Hawke made no comment, forcing himself not to think the worst and to keep the souped up chopper flying straight and level, and keep his emotions under control.

"Ah ha! Bingo!" Dominic Santini shrieked triumphantly, after several excruciatingly long and silent minutes, during which Hawke felt as though he had been holding his breath, and he felt his heart somersault in his chest now. "I got something!"

"Where?" Hawke demanded gruffly.

"About a kilometre ahead at three o'clock," Santini advised, watching the blip on his scope closely. "It's moving, gotta be a vehicle."

"It's got to be them."

Hawke scanned the featureless desert terrain below him, and suddenly, with a frightening sense of déjà vu, he spotted tire tracks in the undulating sand.

Moffet ….

_**No, not Moffet!**_

_**Get a damned grip!**_

Anders.

And, Sara.

"String!" Dominic Santini yelped as Hawke abruptly pulled Airwolf up into a vertical climb.

"I know what I'm doing!" Hawke bit out, as Airwolf continued to climb, pulling up on the flight control console only to execute a perfect Immelman turn and slowly began to descend, Santini cursing under his breath as he hung on for dear life in the rear engineering compartment, realising that his young friend was wanting to get ahead of their prey without his seeing them coming.

"I know that, kid, but can't you give an old guy a little warning before giving him a coronary?" Santini grouched.

The terrain below was getting rougher, mile after mile of undulating sand banks and dunes of varying heights, the odd malformed rock formation rising off the desert floor and Santini suspected that he knew what his young friend had in mind.

"Let's play a little hide and seek …."

They lost altitude at a reasonable rate, Hawke concealing the magnificent Mach 1 super helicopter behind a monolithic sandstone cliff jutting out of the desert, like an accusing finger, and waited, knowing that he would soon be able to see his quarry.

And at last, there it was.

A small dark dot on the distant horizon. Heading straight at them.

"Gotchya!"

Stringfellow Hawke did not care if Anders did know he was coming. It didn't matter.

It ended here.

"There's only one life sign, String," Santini reported, a hint of panic in his voice now. "I've checked the readings, kid, and double checked 'em! Only one person."

"Damn …."

But, maybe that one person was Sara Sykes? Hawke found himself thinking.

Maybe she had somehow managed to over power Anders, and had taken the jeep with the intention of going for help.

_**Oh God, please ….**_

_**Let it be so.**_

_**Let it be so.**_

Guy Anders had been bowling along at full speed, unhindered, a gleeful, victorious smile plastered on his face, as he foresaw no further obstacles in his path to freedom, so the very last thing he expected to see was a huge, sleek, black and white helicopter rising up from behind the rock formation ahead of him, swooping gracefully down to hover menacingly in his path, both sets of chain guns trained with deadly precision ….

On him.

Anders immediately slammed on the brakes.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed feeling the jeep tip firstly one way and then the other, almost over balancing, skidding and slipping in the loose sand, before finally coming to a jarring halt. "What the hell!"

"Give it up Anders, you're finished."

Frowning as the voice boomed out of the helicopter and over the vast emptiness toward him, and trying to shield his eyes from the draft and the sand being tossed around in it, Guy Anders could not believe what he was seeing.

Or hearing.

Immediately recognising the owner of the voice .

"Dobbs!" he gasped in incredulity. "Geez, Roger freakin' Dobbs! What the …."

Back inside Airwolf, the air was so stiff with tension and barely controlled rage, Dominic Santini could have cut it with a knife, and it took all the will power and self control that Stringfellow Hawke possessed to keep from actually firing the chain guns, as his index finger wavered over the firing mechanism.

"String," Dominic Santini's voice in his ear was soft, solemn and yet, there was an underlying hint of warning in there too, Hawke noted.

"It's ok, Dom, I know," Hawke let out a ragged sigh, recalling Colonel Jardine's warning that they needed the traitor alive. "Much as I would love to send this sonofabitch straight to kingdom come, we need him. We need him to tell us who he is working for, and why."

And much much more importantly to Stringfellow Hawke ….

"And we need him …. To find Sara."

"Where is Dr Sykes?" Hawke demanded abruptly over the PA system, watching as Anders swayed slightly as he was buffeted by the downdraft from Airwolf's main rotor, trying to dodge the sand being whipped up all around him. "Where is she?"

"Go to hell!"

"Undoubtedly, but not before you do. Now where is she?"

"In a better place!" Anders screamed and a vile, evil grin split his face then. "But not before I had a little fun …."

"String!" Dominic Santini kept his voice low, needing the younger man to listen to his warning and not do something rash.

"You're too late, Dobbs, I was more man than she could handle!"

"String," Santini warned again, sensing the young man wrestling with his emotions and struggling to keep a hold, losing patience and his resolve in the face of the other man's taunts.

It was just like Gabrielle, all over again, just as he had feared it would be.

However, no matter how hard he tried, Stringfellow Hawke could no longer rein in his emotions and almost without thought, allowed his finger to make contact with the firing nipple, sending a volley of bullets into the open topped jeep, which pinged off the hood and the metal frame, shattering the windshield and bursting tires.

But, thankfully, leaving Guy Anders unscathed, because, what Hawke had just told Dominic Santini was true.

He needed him alive, so that he could find Sara.

He was also aware somewhere deep in the back of his mind that everyone involved in this little debacle would want a piece of Anders, demanding to know who he was working for, the extent of his plans, and if he still had any accomplices in place back there at Thunderbird.

"String, he ain't gonna talk," Santini pointed out, a voice of sanity in Hawke's ear, drawing him back to the here and now. "Look at him …. Crazier than a box of rattlesnakes," Santini added. "You can't trust anything he says."

"I know," Hawke spoke in a low, gruff voice now. "That's why I disabled the jeep. Didn't want him to escape while we went looking for Sara. Now, he's not going anywhere soon," he explained.

"Good thinking. At least now we know which way to head."

"Yeah," Hawke let out a ragged sigh. "Back the way he came. We can follow his tire tracks now."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for?"

"Get on the radio to the control tower at China Lake, give them our co-ordinates and tell them that Christmas came a little early."

"Will do."

And with that, Stringfellow Hawke gently eased up on the flight controls and lifted Airwolf into the air, flying over Guy Anders, whipping up still more sand and dust for the man to choke on, then he guided Airwolf gracefully over the undulating, unforgiving desert once more, with Dominic Santini in back, offering up a silent plea that it wasn't already too late for the plucky, exotic, Sara Sykes.


	9. Chapter 9

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**Chapter Nine**

"Oh God, no!"

Stringfellow Hawke spotted the still, twisted figure lying in the sand, and felt his heart skip a beat.

"It's her," he whispered hoarsely, his voice sticking somewhere in the back of his throat, as he felt his heart rate increase and his rage begin to burn.

He recognised the outfit she had worn the previous evening, minus the white lab coat, which might have offered her a little protection from the desert sun, reflecting back some of it's heat and light, but instead, she lay there clad from head to foot in dark colours, a sleeveless black top and a short black skirt, which would only help to absorb the heat and light more, and which left her arms and legs exposed.

"It's Sara," his hand wobbled, slightly, on the flight controls as he brought Airwolf down, slowly, some distance away, trying not to kick up any more dust than was necessary as the last thing that Sara would need would be to sandblasted.

"Not again," this through clenched teeth now. "Please, not again."

"Take it easy, String," Dominic Santini's soft voice sounded in his ear, and Hawke drew in a long, steadying breath. "Go do what you need to do. I'll bring the water and the ice and the first aid kit," Santini told the young man, keeping his tone hopeful, although he feared the worst.

Overwhelmed, by a sickening sense of déjà vu.

Hawke tore off his helmet and tossed it down on the seat beside him, popped the door, then tumbled out into the sand, his booted feet sinking ankle deep into a scorching pile of sand, and he bit back a curse as he waded through the rough desert terrain to get to Sara Sykes.

She was not moving.

She showed no indication that she was even aware that help was at hand.

Hawke's temper reached boiling point, as, getting closer, he became aware of the way that Sara had been bound, and for the briefest moment, he regretted not having taken his shot with Guy Anders.

_**God help the man if he was ever left alone in the same room with him! **_Hawke seethed.

However, as he skidded to a halt beside Sara, and fell to his knees, trying to shade her body by leaning forward, Hawke felt a moment of extreme elation when he did not immediately see any obviously life threatening injuries.

Unlike poor Gabrielle.

She had died from extreme blood loss, as well as exposure to the desert heat. Shot in the shoulder, by Moffet, he assumed, although he would never know for sure who had inflicted the injury which had drained Gabrielle of her very life essence.

However, the moment of joy was short lived as he took in the ravages inflicted on Sara Sykes by her brief exposure to the desert sun and heat, blisters covering her face, hands and legs, as well as the livid bruises now standing out on her forehead and jaw, her lips, dry and cracked and bleeding, and Hawke now recognised these as wounds inflicted by a man's hand, not nature.

"Sara," he whispered gently, reaching out with trembling fingers to stroke a lock of her hair which had fallen over her brow, willing her to open those beautiful, exotic, ever changing eyes of hers and gaze up at him lovingly.

"Sara," he wanted to gather her to him, to protect her, reassure her, to somehow force some of his own life energy and will power into her.

But he did not, could not, fearing that he would hurt her.

"I'm here now, Sara."

She made no reply and Stringfellow Hawke could feel any hope that he had left seeping away into the sand.

_**Too late, dammit.**_

_**They were too late.**_

"How is she?" Dominic Santini panted as he came to an abrupt halt beside the kneeling young man, looking down on the twisted, burned and blistered body of Sara Sykes and wincing slightly at the sight of such beauty ruined, as Hawke now used the knife he kept in an ankle strap on his right leg to cut the ropes around her wrists and ankles, pulling them away carefully and tossing them angrily back out into the desert.

"I think we're too late," Hawke choked out hoarsely.

"Hey, take it easy kid," Dominic Santini rested a reassuring hand on the younger man's shoulder as Hawke hung his head and wrestled with his emotions.

"She ain't dead, String, look," Dominic Santini again squeezed his shoulder, more firmly now, dragging Hawke's attention back and he raised his head and looked down on Sara Sykes prone body once more, unsure of what he was supposed to be looking for.

"Look son, she's breathing."

It was true.

She was breathing.

Dammit, that should have been the first thing that he should have checked, Hawke chastised himself bitterly.

He should have checked for a pulse.

The movement of Sara's chest, up and down, was so faint, no wonder Hawke had missed it.

Stringfellow Hawke carefully reached out for her slim, delicate wrist and sought out her pulse.

_**Yes! **_

It was there.

Weak and fluttering wildly like a frightened bird in a cage, but it was most definitely there.

Stringfellow Hawke's heart soared. He could have cried with relief at that moment.

"Gimme the water, Dom," he demanded now, carefully slipping one arm gently under Sara's neck, so that he could raise her head.

"Wait a minute, kid," Dominic Santini hesitated, his brow creased in deep thought.

"Dom …."

"You can't give her too much, String," Santini advised now as Hawke glowered up at him, eyes thin slits against the sun's glare behind Santini's bulk. "You'll make her even sicker," he told the younger man, ignoring his frosty expression and unscrewing the cap on the silver canteen.

"Listen to me, kid, she's got heat stroke. First thing we gotta do is get her out of the sun, find some place shady. Ok, I know we're in the middle of the desert but …. We have to try to start cooling her down, String. She's literally cooking out here, but we have to do it slowly, so she doesn't go into shock, and then we have to get her to a hospital. Pronto!"

"Ok," Hawke realised that what his old friend was saying actually made sense.

"I read up on it," Santini informed when Hawke arched an eyebrow at him enquiry. "After, well, you know, after the last time, and when I knew that you were gonna be playin' in this sandbox for a while."

"Dominic Santini, you never cease to amaze me."

"Gee," Santini grew bashful and Hawke felt a gentle smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Now will you give me some water?"

"Sure, sure. Better if I drip a little onto your hand, and then you can kinda let it dribble over her face and lips."

"I get the picture, Dom."

"Ok, and I'll see to an ice pack."

"Thank you."

Hawke held out his hand, ignoring the slight tremor he saw there, and Dominic Santini carefully poured the cool, clean, ice cold water from the canteen over Hawke's extended hand, and then the younger man carefully held his hand over Sara Sykes face and dribbled the water slowly over her sun blistered brow, cheeks and finally her parched lips, clenching his hand into a fist, squeezing out every last drop.

At first, she made no reaction, but, when a second sprinkle of water showered over her face, Hawke noticed that she wrinkled her nose a little, and blinked.

"Atta girl!" this from Dominic Santini, who had been watching the proceedings over Hawke's shoulder. "We got us a fighter, here String."

"Sara," Hawke choked out. "It's ok, Sara, you're safe now. I'm here, Sara. Hold on, honey, hold on, just a little longer. Soon have you out of here ."

"Roger?" His name was forced from her parched, cracked lips and she finally managed to open her swollen eyes, fixing irises that were the deepest, darkest shade of violet, edging huge dilated black pupils, Hawke had ever seen, onto his handsome, familiar and adorable face.

Which she now noted, was cast in something of an anxious expression.

And why did he appear to be kneeling over her?

Another mirage.

She had been dreaming of him …. the way he had looked when he had pulled her out of that burning lab, and then again last night.

The hunger and the desire, and the battle that she had seen raging behind his lovely sky blue eyes.

Should he accept what she was offering?

She had known that he had wanted to, but, she had also known that he was a man who liked to play by the rules.

And his personal wants and needs would have to come second to his primary mission.

Finding out who was behind these mishaps on Project Thunderbird.

She had been thinking of him, and so her heat addled brain had obligingly conjured up a mirage for her.

Like the rainstorm that had woken her. Fat, ice cold drops falling from a leaden sky onto her welcoming, upturned face, preceded by a whirlwind and ear splitting thunder.

Still, it was a lovely image.

Something nice to look at, at the end.

Not such a bad way to die.

Looking at that wonderful face.

"Ah, Roger, we never seemed to get a break, did we?"

Her voice was so soft and so low, Hawke had to lean in even closer to catch what she was saying, and this enabled her, drawing on her last reserves of strength, to reach up and, with shaking fingers, cup that wonderfully rugged, firm and determined jaw, the most beautiful smile settling on her face as she did so.

"I love you," she confessed, and even as he felt his heart soaring with joy, Stringfellow Hawke could not help feeling, as the words tumbled from her lips, that it was a deathbed confession.

"I love you too, Sara. You're safe now. I'll get you out of here, I promise."

"Roger?" She was frowning now, seeming to realise that her fingers were in contact with real flesh and bone, warm and alive .

"Yes honey, it's me. I'm here, love. Hold on."

Dominic Santini watched with a mixture of pride and amazement at the tender way in which his young friend tended to Sara Sykes, dripping still more water over her flushed and burned face, relief flooding through him that they had gotten to her, but, he suspected, just barely in time.

Relief that his young friend would not have to face the death of yet another woman he loved.

That history had not repeated it's self.

"String," Santini spoke up reluctantly now. "We gotta get her out of the sun."

"I know, Dom, but I'm frightened to touch her. She's so badly burned."

"I know, kid, but you've got to."

"Ok. You go start up Airwolf and get on the horn to the tower at China Lake, tell them we found her, tell them to get a doctor standing by ASAP, and see if they can give us any more advice on how to help her until we get there."

Stringfellow Hawke rattled all of this off as he placed the ice pack that Santini had made out of a length of material that had originally been designed as a sling to support arm and shoulder wounds, padded with cotton wool, bound up tightly in bandages to keep it all together, gently against Sara's brow.

"Roger?"

"Take it easy, honey," Hawke soothed, returning his attention to Sara Sykes as Dominic Santini turned on his heel and hurried back to the idling chopper.

"No, Roger, listen, please. It's Anders. Guy Anders …. He …. He …."

"Sh, sh, save your strength, love. I know all about Anders. Someone should be picking him up in a little while."

"Bombs! He planted bombs …. Set to go off at …."

"Sh, sh, it's ok, they know. It's taken care of," Hawke assured her. "Now save your strength, and let me take care of you."

"Roger?"

"Sh, sh," he dripped still more water on to her face and was pleased to see her tongue slip out from between her lips and catch a spot that tricked down the side of her face, lapping it up greedily, and he found himself clinging to the hope that she was rallying.

That it might just be alright after all.

"So thirsty …."

"I know, honey. When this is all over, I promise you, I'll buy you a tall glass of ice cold beer. In the mean time, you'll have to make do with this."

"Promises, promises," she attempted to tease, but he could see that her strength was ebbing away now. "Always promises ..."

"Sara, I'm going to have to move you," he had to raise his voice now as Airwolf's engines began to come on line and he could already feel the movement of air on his back as her main rotor gradually began to build up speed.

"I'm sorry, Sara, I don't want to hurt you, but, I can't see any other way."

"I know," she croaked out now. "Just do it, love, and Roger, thank you. For finding me," a dry sob escaped from her lips then.

"Hey, hey, it's ok. It's over," he soothed now. "You're safe. I'm here, I'm here."

"I'm so glad. Didn't want to die before I told you how I feel," she hiccoughed raggedly.

"You are not going to die!" There was suddenly a cold hardness to his voice now.

"Sir! Yes, Sir!" Her voice was growing weaker and her eyes were fluttering closed again.

"And Sara …."

"Yes Roger?"

It was a terrible effort, but she opened her eyes once more and gazed loving up into his handsome face, and found herself rewarded for the effort with a gentle smile.

"I love you too. For the record."

"I'd kiss you. If I weren't so damned radio active!" She spluttered and Hawke wondered how close she really was to hysteria now.

"I'll take a rain check," he told her, gently slipping his arms around her body and bracing himself to lift her weight. "But only because if we started in on that, I'm not sure I would be able to stop. Ok, here we go, honey, hang on tight."

Hawke carefully lifted Sara Sykes up into his arms, but despite his care and gentleness, she cried out, as he held her carefully against his body, staggering over the uneven ground, feeling the heat radiating off her through the thin fabric of his flight suit, which he knew must be chaffing her delicate, burned flesh with every movement, as he hurriedly carried her toward Airwolf, knowing that every step he took, every jerk and jolt, was pure torture.

Cutting through her like a knife.

Dominic Santini had slipped out of the cockpit and stood at the open door, waiting to assist Hawke as he climbed aboard Airwolf, taking Sara Sykes from him, briefly so that the young man could settle himself in the left front seat, Santini marvelling at how fragile and light she seemed in his arms, before carefully passing her back to Hawke.

At last Hawke was settled inside Airwolf's cool interior, the door closing behind him with a gentle hiss, with Sara Sykes cradled on his lap, forgoing the ritual of jamming on his helmet so that her head could loll weakly against his left shoulder.

She had fainted some where in the brief jaunt across the sand. The pain obviously too much for her.

At least, Hawke prayed, that was all it was, as he waited for Dominic Santini to get back into the cockpit and settle himself at the flight controls.

"Get us the hell out of here, Dom."

"You got it!"

After jamming on his helmet once more, Santini pulled back on the flight controls and Airwolf rose agilely into the sky.

"I called up the tower, String," Santini was having to shout to make himself heard as without his helmet he had no direct com-link with Hawke, even though he was sitting beside him a scant few feet away. "And I told them we would be coming in ASAP. They said they'd have a medical team waiting when we got there," he informed, fighting to make himself heard.

"Did they say what we should do?" Hawke yelled back.

"Just what we have been doing, already. Get her out of the sun, small sips of water if she can manage them, if not, keep her lips moist with a damp cloth, and try to start cooling her down with ice packs. How's she doin'?"

"She fainted," Hawke let out a deep sigh, and slightly adjusted Sara's position on his lap while trying to apply the now soggy ice pack to her neck and brow, hampered by the restricted space. "The pain must have been unbearable, Dom. I'd like to …."

"Yeah, kid, I know what you'd like to do to that guy Anders. When we catch up with him, I'll hold your coat, and you can lay one on him for me too."

"Deal," Hawke snarled. "Did they find the sorry sonofabitch yet?" He asked then, secretly hoping that the men Colonel Jardine had sent out into the desert had not yet come across Guy Anders, and that he was getting a taste of what he had left Sara to face.

"Yeah. Be bringing him back in, after a little detour. So easy to lose your way out here."

"He should be grateful they're not bringing him back in a body bag."

"Amen!"

"However long they keep him out in the sun, it won't be long enough," Hawke snarled again, cradling Sara Sykes to his chest protectively, and for the briefest moment, Dominic Santini found himself wondering if the younger man would ever be able to let go of her, so that the doctors could work on her.

"Tower told me to tell you that Colonel Jardine's people defused the last bomb too, so looks like friend Anders lucked out all round …."

"How long, Dom?" Hawke demanded now, his face grey and lined with worry as he kept looking down into Sara Sykes flushed, bruised and blistered face.

"ETA five minutes."

"Hang on, Sara, hang on …."

She felt so small, so weak, lying there in his lap, heat radiating off her in waves, her head resting gently against his shoulder blade, her breathing so shallow he could barely feel it as it caressed the side of his neck, and yet, despite the fact that every movement must have been excruciatingly painful to her, somehow, she managed to find the strength to gently apply pressure to his right thigh.

A gentle squeeze of reassurance, for him.

Trying to let him know that she was still with him.

Still fighting.

Still holding on as he had beseeched her to do.

And Stringfellow Hawke felt tears sting briefly in his eyes.

Even at death's door, her one thought was to reassure him.

_**God, how he loved her.**_

"Hold on sweetheart, we're nearly there …. Hold on …."

As Airwolf came in for a landing, Hawke could see the people standing outside the main building at China Lake, a gurney already standing between them, waiting to take Sara Sykes to their medical facility, and once he and Dominic had alighted from the helicopter and Hawke gently handed Sara over to the China Lake people, all he could do was stand by and watch as they rushed her inside, Dominic Santini resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder as he too watched the paramedics dash away with the semi conscious Sara Sykes on the gurney.

"She's in good hands, String …." He offered, although he knew it sounded lame.

He could only guess how his young friend was feeling at that moment.

However, there was nothing more that they could do for her now. It was up to the medics.

"You gonna stay a while?"

"No. We still have some unfinished business. We left a pile of trash back there in the desert that needs to be cleaned up …."

"String …."

However, the cold and very dark look Hawke was aiming in his direction deterred Santini from protesting any further. There would be no reasoning with the younger man, and now that he had the bit between his teeth, no stopping him either.

He didn't much care for this Anders fellow, but Dominic Santini found himself hoping that the search party from Thunderbird would find him before Stringfellow Hawke did.


	10. Chapter 10

Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

**_Epilogue._**

Santini Air Hangar, Van Nuys Airport, California.

Two months later ….

"Hey, String, you want some coffee?" Dominic Santini yelled across the Santini Air Hangar, hoping to get the attention of the young man lying beneath the Bell Jet Ranger which was scheduled for routine maintenance today.

When Hawke did not immediately respond, Santini casually dropped a wrench on the floor and the resounding metallic clang did the trick.

The startled young man reacted by raising his head sharply, banging it on the side strut of the landing skid, and wincing he crawled out to see what all the commotion was about.

"Coffee?" Grinning widely, Santini waved the young man's mug at him in one hand and the empty coffee machine in the other.

"Yeah, thanks …." Hawke's hand absently came up to rub at the sore spot as he scowled at Santini. "Do you want me to make it?"

"No, I can do it. You carry on with what you're doing …." Santini continued to grin, sauntering over to the sink where he ran the cold tap for a few minutes before filling the coffee machine and returned to the workbench to spoon in the required amount of coffee grounds.

"Just don't make it your usual high octane stuff, Dom …." Hawke grouched, rubbing absently at the spot where his head had collided with the metal landing skid once more and wondering why it was the old coot seemed to have a mischievous devil at work on him today. "I'd like to sleep some time this week …."

"You wanna do it yourself?" Santini retaliated, and watched Hawke slide back under the Bell Jet Ranger, grumbling to himself as he did so.

Santini returned to the task in hand and was just returning to the sink to rinse out the dirty coffee mugs when he heard the familiar sound of a well maintained jeep as it came to a halt outside the hangar, and he frowned, sticking his head out around the hangar door to be greeted by the sight of a very attractive young woman clad in the uniform of a US Army Major, as she slipped gracefully out of the driver's side of an Army jeep.

"Oh String …." Santini quickly turned back to again yell at his young friend, who had returned to his prone position under the Bell Jet, and who once again banged his head in response to Santini's holler, muttering and cursing as he scuttled out from under the chopper. "You got a visitor!"

Major Georgina Fellows, US Army, walked gracefully into the hangar and found herself greeted by an older man she immediately recognised as Dominic Santini, clad in filthy coveralls, giving her the sweetest, crispest salute she had had in a while, his ruddy rumpled face split by a huge grin, rheumy grey eyes twinkling in recognition and pleasure at seeing her.

"Sarg …." She greeted Santini with a sweet smile of her own and returned the salute, then noted movement from across the hangar out of the corner of her eye, and her hand fell slowly away from her brow, as suddenly her gaze was settling on the familiar face of Roger Dobbs ….

No, Stringfellow Hawke ….

_**Sara **_

Hawke was staring at her now, blue eyes wide and shocked to find her standing there, before him, when it had been two months since he had last laid eyes on her.

That had been when he and Dominic Santini had left her at the medical facility at China Lake and returned to deal with the traitor, Guy Anders.

Unfortunately, Colonel Jardine's men had rounded him by the time they got back there, and Hawke had been left deflated and disappointed all round.

He hadn't even been allowed to sit in on Anders' interrogation.

He had wanted to go back to see how Sara Sykes had been doing, but Archangel had recalled him back to Knightsbridge for an immediate debriefing, and by the time he had had a chance to ask after Sara, all Archangel would tell him was that the Army had transferred her to a specialist burns unit back east after their initial examination, and that as far as he knew, she was out of danger, but that it had been a very close thing indeed.

Now, here she was, standing there looking extremely chic in her uniform, a sweet smile on her lips, and those unusual dark blue eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face.

He was lost for words.

She started to walk toward him, closing the gap between them with confident strides, smiled softly, and then she surprised the hell out of him by stepping right up close, reaching out with her right hand to grab the front of his filthy coveralls and jerked him toward her, the other hand coming up to cup the back of his head as she pulled his face down so that she could claim his lips with her own.

"Sar …."

"Shhhhhh," She breathed against his lips as her mouth clamped down on his hungrily, preventing him from finishing her name.

Shocked and completely non-plussed, Stringfellow Hawke found himself kissing her back, fiercely, passionately, with all the need and joy he felt in his heart at seeing her looking so good, so well ….

So alive.

They devoured each other's lips hungrily, her fingers running through his hair, digging into his scalp, then roaming over back and shoulders and buttocks, his fingers knocking off her cap in their hast to wind into her hair, loosening the pins from her chignon to allow it to fall in a black velvet cascade down her back, his other hand fitting nicely into the dip of her waist and the small of her back as he pulled her closer.

"What took you so long …." Hawke mumbled wryly against her lips then, noting out of the corner his eye, Dominic Santini, eyes wide and sparkling merrily with amusement and a wide grin on his face as he tried to discreetly withdraw to the back office, but Hawke ignored his old friend's mirth, whilst blessing him for leaving them alone, as he used the fingers he had wound in her hair to tip her head back so that he could deepen the kiss even more.

"Still can't wait to be asked, huh?" Hawke teased as they drew away from each other at last, grinning and breathless and unable to tear his eyes off her lovely passion flushed face.

"Getting older by the second, and you would still be standing there thinking about it." And again she pulled his mouth down to her own.

"Call me old fashioned, but I like to take my time …. It's good to see you, Sar …." Hawke drew in a ragged breath as they pulled apart, reluctantly once more and this time she raised a neatly manicured index finger to his lips and shook her head gently

"I'll say," she grinned wickedly up at him, keeping her arms around him, eyes devouring him as she drew in a similar ragged breath, and he noted immediately, deliberately not calling him by name either, and a slight frown began to mar his brow, however, she did not give him chance to voice the question suddenly running through his mind, her hand easing his face back down to hers.

_**This is crazy …. **_Hawke found himself thinking as he planted his lips firmly against hers.

_**And wonderful and way past time ….**_

_**And he loved her ….**_

They came together again, for another long, hungry kiss, and this time when they parted, there was amusement in both their eyes, as they grinned breathlessly at each other.

"I've wanted to do that for so long …." She confessed, a delicate blush beginning to creep up her cheeks when she drew away at last. "I needed to make sure I didn't dream you."

"I'm real enough …."

"Yeah."

"You look well …."

"I am well, thanks to you. You saved my life …." Her voice caught in her throat, briefly then, and she reached up now to caress his cheek lightly with her fingers. "I'm sorry they wouldn't let you see me … Afterward …."

"Archangel told me they shipped you back east."

"Yes. I was in a specialist burns unit for a month, and then I had to go give my report to my CO and get debriefed, and then I got thirty days leave, so after a week of boredom at home, I hopped on a plane and came out here to spend some time with my father, he lives in San Diego." She quickly explained. "He asked me to thank you for your help in bringing my sister's murderer to justice."

"I didn't do much," Hawke protested now.

"You stopped him murdering his other daughter. That's a debt that neither of us will ever be able to repay."

"What happened, Sar …." Hawke tripped over her name, and now she dropped her gaze, briefly.

"He, Anders, told me that he was always suspicious of me, but didn't understand why, until he overheard us talking, and then he recognised me from a photo he saw on Claire's desk …."

All the time she was talking, her hand was doing delicious things to his spine and Hawke was finding it hard to concentrate, as he gazed down in to her big deep violet eyes.

"He followed us outside that night, wanting to see what we were up to, because he was suspicious of you too. Your showing up just after me distracted him. He didn't know which one of us was there to oust him, or if we were working together, so he snuck out after us, and then he went back inside and waited, eaves dropping on our conversation."

She paused to draw in a soft breath and now her hand drifted to his exposed forearm, where she traced her finger delicately up and down slowly, playing with the fine hairs just above his wrist.

"And then, he jumped me …. Came at me from behind so I didn't get a chance to show him my moves …."

She grinned again now, to lighten the mood, and then surprised him by moving back from him, bending down gracefully to retrieve her cap from the oily hangar floor, and after winding her hair back up, pushed it back haphazardly underneath it as she set the cap squarely on her head, and then she reached out, taking his hand and began walking back across the hangar, drawing him after her, which made Hawke frown.

"Time to say goodbye …." She told him with genuine regret as they stepped out into the sunshine.

"Goodbye? After _**that**_ hello?" His tone was incredulous as he reached out to slip his arm around her waist, drawing her in close.

"Afraid so. Only a flying visit. I've been redeployed, back to my old unit. They're in Germany," she told him in a soft voice. "But I couldn't go without coming to say thank you. Without knowing …."

"Knowing what?" He asked softly, but he thought that he knew the answer.

It was a question that had been burning in the back of his mind too, since the last time he had seen her, only now, he had his answer.

"If it was Hawke or Dobbs I care about …. Roger or Stringfellow, I fell in love with."

"And?" He breathed raggedly.

"I guess it's both," she sighed deeply, dropping her gaze shyly now.

"Me too. Sara and Georgie …." He confided raggedly, and this drew her unusual eyes back to his face now. "So where does that leave us?"

"I don't know. Hell, I don't even know what to call you …."

"I don't care what you call me. Right now, I'd settle for Roger damned Ramjet, if it meant that we might be able to see each other again …."

"Oh, we will …." She reached up to cup his strong, chiselled jaw tenderly now. "I promise. Stringfellow. Roger. A rose by any other name …. I won't be in Europe forever, and my father doesn't live that far away …. And if you're ever in Germany …."

She stepped in close to him once more and wrapped her arms around his neck, her hand coming up behind his head to guide his lips down on to her own once more as she breathed:

"I love _**you**_ …. Whatever the hell your name is. I love _**you **_…."

"I love _**you **_too …." He breathed against her lips, then found himself unable to speak as she moved her mouth hungrily against his once more, leaving him breathless and unable to think clearly.

"It's not goodbye, just so long for now, and see you around …."

She drew away at last, her lips lingering against his, eyes filled with passion and love and a promise for the future as she again reached up to caress his cheek with her fingers.

"When the time is right, we'll find each other again," she gave a gentle sigh.

"When you're done saving the world, and I'm done paying back Uncle Sam for my medical education. Somewhere down the road, our paths will cross again. When that time comes, we'll both know who we are, and what we want, and names won't matter a damn."

She moved back from him now, and Hawke reluctantly dropped his hand from her waist as she stood up straight, squared back her shoulders and offered him a crisp salute before turning gracefully on her heel and walking purposefully back out into the sunshine.

Stringfellow Hawke watched as she climbed gracefully into the jeep and drove away, waving cheerily, but not looking back as she guided the jeep down the strip, leaving him breathless, giddy, elated and speechless, yet wondering, despite what she had said, if he would ever see her again.

_**How can you possibly doubt it?**_

_**She'll come looking for you!**_

_**That's my girl.**_

_**Straight to the point, no messing around ….**_

_**Not afraid to take what she wants ….**_

_**My beautiful …. Lawyer, doctor, injun' chief …. Major ….**_

It was hard to watch her driving off, out of his life without so much as a backward glance, but of course, he knew that she was right.

Maybe it wouldn't be forever ….

They both had their real lives to live, their own paths to follow for now, but he could not help smiling as he found himself wondering, if the next time Archangel had a mission for him in say, Russian, or East Germany, if he couldn't somehow find time to take a detour to drop in on his precious Psycho Sara.

The smile that curved at his lips now was warm and soft and filled with hope and anticipation, and it grew even wider as he promised himself that next time he saw her, she wouldn't have to wait for him to think about asking, and that _**he**_ would finally get to show her _**his **_moves ….


End file.
